


I'll Give You Three, I've Been Down Nine

by wesley2015remaster



Category: The Monkees (TV)
Genre: <- just uh. warning for that bc the first chap is a bit full on lol, Emetophobia, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Nudity, Period-Typical Homophobia, Sexual Content, Suicide Attempt, im not american i dont want to learn geography, micky is a bit slutty, mike is just shy weird ass, mike owns a cat, not set in california its just an ambiguous town in america somewhere, this is an. alternate universe of the tv monkees, what better combo is there
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 23:28:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 36,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29550024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wesley2015remaster/pseuds/wesley2015remaster
Summary: It's remarkably easy to go missing in the 60s - to disappear without a trace. This is something Mike is aware of. But that doesn't mean he was expecting a boy to turn up half-dead in his backyard one morning, with nothing but the clothes on his back.
Relationships: Micky Dolenz/Mike Nesmith
Comments: 41
Kudos: 34





	1. A Poem On The Underground Wall/I Got A Woman

**Author's Note:**

> hey! guess what! this fic has a playlist with a song for each chapter. if you're interested you can find it here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1DNwWM5FLmCHetiAzKtbpM?si=lEVoDQZ2QZGsUTSJvI6QiQ
> 
> also just a general warning because this chapter is a little gross,, it's not like this the whole fic i swear

**_“The last train is nearly due,_ ** **_  
_** **_The underground is closing soon”_ **

**(i) A Poem On The Underground Wall**

Mike pulled his coat closer around him as he opened the back door and felt the wind whip at his face, cold and harsh and cutting into his cheeks. Another bleary Monday morning, damp and foggy and miserable. The gravel of the path that led down to the river crunched underneath his boot heels. The river bank in the distance was hidden by the fog, and everything around him had a grey tint to its colour - the bushes, the grass, the red brick of his house, the wooden chair on the porch.

The cat had gotten out again. He had always acted more like a dog than a cat, escaping to the outdoors any moment he got. Mike could hear the bell of his collar somewhere in the distance.

He heaved a sigh and continued down the path. The wind seemed to pick up the further from the house he got, and he tucked his hands underneath his arms for warmth as his fingers gradually grew more numb. He couldn’t stand the cold. He couldn’t stand mornings. He hadn’t slept well, and his eyes felt scratchy and his head heavy at the involuntary early rise.

Mike thought it strange. He ventured further into the fog, the gravel path opening into the bank of the river, still not finding the cat. He never went out _this_ far. He knew to stay away from the river.

As wind howled in his ears and bit at Mike’s face, he continued to hear the soft tinkle of the bell further down the bank. The only other sounds were his huffing breaths and the crunch of his boots as he continued on with heavy steps. The sooner he got inside the better.

The fog cleared a little, and Mike caught sight of the cat at the edge of the river bank, completely black with his tail standing straight up. Mike wiped the sleep from his eyes. When he opened them he saw a body.

At the sight, his chest squeezed tight and gripped him tighter and tighter and tighter with fear and didn't let go until he couldn’t breathe or speak and he could hardly see or hear from fright. His body was reacting before his mind even had time to process what he had laid eyes on, before he even knew what it was. Just beside the cat, lying in a twisted heap, was a torso, limbs, clothes, shoulders. It looked almost inhuman, an ambiguous mass of shapes and angles with one arm sticking out from the heap and a hand still in the water. The body looked horrifyingly colourless in the fog. Had it not been for the unmistakable shape of the hand in the water, and the shoe with its untied laces (connected to an ankle, connected to a leg, connected to a torso, connected to the rest of the body), Mike didn’t think he would have even been able to tell what it was that the cat was sniffing at.

He was stuck to the spot, unable to move even if he wanted to. His eyes held on the sight for a moment. Was he dreaming? 

He was faintly aware of a pounding in his ears. Were his eyes playing tricks on him?

His hands felt numb. The cat was swatting at what Mike thought were a pair of legs. Were they dead or alive?

He wanted to scream. His voice didn’t work. Would anyone even hear him over the wind? Nobody lived nearby.

The cat turned to him and yowled. His limbs felt stiff and rusted.

Mike didn’t know how long he had stood frozen in the spot for. It felt like it had only been a few seconds, it felt like it had been hours. Something shook him from his shock, he didn’t know what. He ran towards the body, almost tearing holes into his pants as he dropped to his knees to turn it over. The body belonged to a boy, pieces of gravel pressed into his face, his eyes closed, his hair was still wet and curled in waves around his face. He was tragically beautiful in an entirely macabre way, appearing peaceful from unconsciousness despite what had happened to him. He looked like a painting that had been created with the intention of capturing the sublime. _Shit, shit, shit._ Mike felt underneath the boy’s jaw. There was a pulse. He looked down, and his chest was rising and falling. _Shit, shit, shit!_ At least he was alive and breathing.

The boy shivered lightly as Mike lifted him from the ground. His head lolled against Mike’s chest, bumping against him softly as Mike rushed back to the house, his arms aching and the wind screaming at him. Mike was huffing in short gasps, trusting muscle memory to take him back to the house, as he didn’t take his worried eyes off of the boy’s face for a second. He hardly allowed himself to blink, and his eyes stung and watered from the wind.

Mike was already trembling something fierce, but his knees almost gave out as he saw the boy shudder. He stirred, blinked, coughed. He coughed a little more frequently, and a little more violently too. And more after that. Then the coughing was making him slip out of Mike’s grasp and Mike couldn’t catch him and the fall seemed to last an age of an age and yet seemingly in the blink of an eye, he had collapsed onto his hands and knees and was retching over the gravel. What came out of him looked and smelled a whole lot more like booze than dirty river water.

Mike was stopped in his tracks once more, frozen in time as he processed the fall, and the crouching, and the coughing, and the vomiting. He focused on the small details of the scene in front of him, unsure of what else to do. The cat had been following him behind his heels. The boy only had one sneaker on. The other foot was bare. His trousers were brown, and the seam had been split at the left calf. His t-shirt had several rips at the back.

He had stopped vomiting, and this snapped Mike out of his haze. The boy was sitting with his knees folded underneath him, and he was hunched over with his arms wrapped around his stomach 

He was still coughing as Mike crouched in front of him and asked, “Are you alright?”

“Mic-Micky,” was all he groaned in response, sounding pained and groggy.

“Micky? Is that your name?” Mike asked, his voice coming out hurried and terrified. The boy, Micky, nodded. “We’ve gotta get you back to my house, Micky. Can you stand?”

Micky nodded again, but as he straightened himself to stand, a strange look crossed his face and he lurched to his side, turning away from Mike as he threw up. Mike’s hands shook. He hardly noticed the cold anymore.

Micky didn’t have much left in him to cough up. Mike watched him as he dry heaved. He fell to the ground, sagging into the bank as if he was giving up entirely and narrowly missing his puke. He rolled onto his back. He was muttering incoherently, whining and sobbing, his chest heaving in on itself. His cries sounded like he was choking. Mike shuffled closer, rocks getting stuck to his pants and the palms of his hands.

“It’s-it’s gonna be okay,” Mike stuttered, unsure if such pointless words would help, given the circumstances. He reached down to brush the dirt and gravel from Micky’s face. He hardly noticed, only kept whimpering. Little flecks of dried blood were left behind. “We just gotta make it a bit farther.” Mike searched for something, anything, in the pockets of his coats to wipe away the corners of Micky’s mouth with, and when his hands came up with nothing, he pulled the wool hat from the top of his head. He winced. He would have to wash it later. He wiped Micky's face and stuffed it into his pockets, trying not to think too much about it. “I’m gonna lift you up again, okay Micky?”

Micky was shivering violently in Mike’s arms, and the sight made him want to sob from sympathy and from stress. Micky had closed his eyes, which caused Mike’s fear to spike in his throat, but he was still whispering nonsense under his breath and coughing, which meant he was at least conscious. He had mostly calmed down, tucking his arms in and resting his head against Mike’s chest. Every now and then his eyes would squeeze tight and he would clutch at the fabric of Mike’s coat. He would speak clearly in small fragments. “Don’t,” he would say, pleading. “Please, I … can’t. Can’t swim.”

As Mike set him down to stand so he could open the door, Micky leaned against his shoulder, Mike’s free arm supporting him by the waist. He said his first full coherent sentence. “You can’t … You can’t take me back, I can’t do it.”

“I’m not takin’ you anywhere, just my house, okay?” Mike said softly as tears started falling down Micky’s face again. “Can you walk inside?”

Micky didn’t answer, and Mike hadn’t expected him to, in his half-delirious state. He didn’t say anything, or nod his agreement, but he managed to put one foot in front of the other. Mike helped him along to the bathroom, where he set him down on the linoleum, his back supported by the bathtub behind him. Mike leaned over him, turned the knob on the hot water and plugged the bath. Micky looked at him as he worked with wide, almond eyes, red, bloodshot and glassy from spending a night in the river and from crying. Mike looked back, wondering what his own expression looked like, and what Micky was seeing within it. He tucked away a piece of hair that had fallen in front of Micky’s face before leaving the small bathroom to grab a blanket while they waited for the bath to fill. He hated to leave Micky alone, but he also hated to see him shivering so violently.

He wrapped the scratchy blanket around Micky’s shoulders and bent down to untie his single shoe. Micky said nothing, only watched him silently and wiped away the tears from his cheeks. They looked into each other’s eyes for a moment, brown on brown. Mike studied his face properly. A small pug nose, a sharp boxer’s chin and jawline, soft eyes that looked soulful and sad and eyebrows that furrowed together, making him look lost and confused. Which he was.

Mike shut off the water, and suddenly the room felt a whole lot more quiet.

“You’ve gotta get undressed,” Mike said. “You’ll feel better after a warm bath.”

Micky said nothing, only held up his arms, allowing Mike to take off his shirt. Mike was taken aback, and blushed red at Micky's expectation that he would do it himself. He had been more prepared to politely keep his back turned while Micky hopped in the bath. But Micky’s expression was neutral and gave no hint of timidity. It was almost childishly innocent in its plea, wanting to be looked after and hoping for Mike to just get on with it and help him. Mike fought back a shaky sigh and tugged at the hem, pulling the t-shirt over his head.

Micky unbuttoned his own pants, struggling and taking several attempts to get the button through the hole with clumsy fingers, and Mike helped him pull them and his boxers down his legs. Mike averted his gaze, but Micky hardly seemed to notice the awkwardness of being naked in front of a stranger. He was probably so worn out and ragged that all he could think about was the bath. Mike grabbed his hand and pulled Micky up, keeping a light hand on his back (barely touching the skin) in case he slipped and he needed to catch him.

Once he was settled, Mike left for only a moment, taking Micky’s dirty clothes into the laundry and picking out a clean set and a towel. The blanket that had been around Micky’s shoulders still lay on the ground when he returned. He felt strange about watching, but he was more than a little afraid that Micky would attempt to drown himself if he didn’t. So, he compromised by keeping his back turned, leaning against the side of the tub.

He thought about a lot of things while he waited for Micky to be done. He would have to call in sick for work. Maybe for the next few days. Would he tell Davy and Peter about what had happened? Maybe they could help him out a bit. God knows he needed some advice on what to do. And his house only had one bedroom. Micky could take the bed, the boy deserved some comfort. He could sleep on the couch for a while until they figured out what to do. 

And where had Micky even come from? Mike had been piecing together a story, but he didn’t know how accurate it was. He suspected Micky had been drunk. Maybe he had fallen into the river. Mike had an inkling it might have been on purpose. Maybe he had been chased. That didn’t narrow down where Micky was from, though. The river flowed through a few of the neighbouring towns, though if he had been in there all night, he couldn’t have come from more than an hour or two’s drive away from Mike’s backyard. He had probably wound up there because it was shallower - more a creek than a river by that point - and he would have been able to wash up on shore, especially if he couldn’t swim like he had said. 

The cat came into the bathroom and rubbed against Mike’s legs. He had forgotten all about him as he worried over Micky. He hadn’t even noticed that he had come in behind them. Mike scratched his chin, wondering if Micky would be ready to get out soon. He had been quiet for a while, the water had to be getting cold by now.

The cat sniffed the tub, standing on his hind legs with his front paws balanced on the edge to inspect the scene. He seemed to decide against venturing any further and trotted away.

Mike couldn’t stop himself any longer. He looked over his shoulder to check on Micky.

Micky had one cheek rested against knees that were tucked to his chest. His arms wrapped around them, hugging himself tightly. He was fast asleep. 

Mike bit his lip and sighed. He felt like he could sleep for a thousand years, and he wasn’t even the one who had washed up on a river bank, half-drowned in the middle of nowhere.

He decided to roll up his sleeves and just get it over and done with. He reached for Micky’s arms and pulled him up by the armpits. He lifted him, bridal style, over the side of the tub and set him back sitting on the floor. His arms were going to hurt like a bitch tomorrow. Maybe even by the afternoon.

Blood rushed in his ears as he blushed beet red. Getting Micky into the clothes was tricky and awkward when working with dead weight, and Mike’s hands shook with embarrassment as he tried not to look in any one place for too long. He was not well-practiced in things like this.

Somehow, Micky didn’t wake up. Mike would have been more concerned (he was still fairly concerned) had he not figured that Micky simply desperately needed sleep.

Mike left Micky in the bathroom for a fraction of a moment as he went back to his bedroom and pulled back the covers. Soon, he was carrying Micky in and laying him down on the bed, pulling the blankets over him and bringing him an extra just in case.

Mike held a hand that hadn’t stopped shaking all morning to his forehead, wondering just what the hell he would do when Micky woke up.

**(ii) I Got A Woman**

Micky awoke surrounded by warmth, his eyes opening and pulling him from dreams he couldn’t remember with slow blinks. For a minute, he wasn’t sure where he was or how he’d gotten there. It was dark in the room, and all he could see were shadows and fuzzy outlines of furniture. The blankets were heavy on top of him, pressure on all sides. Like he had been pushed underwater.

Memories came back to him entirely impersonally, as if they belonged to someone who wasn’t him. Water and hands and weak limbs that wouldn’t work quite right. The face of a man looking back at him, a boy hardly older than he was. A southern accent as he spoke.

His eyes were adjusting to the darkness. He saw curtains hanging stagnant over the windows, a dresser and a desk and a guitar in the corner. He sat up, gathering the blanket around him and regretting it; his head felt like it was being torn down the middle, the seams ripping and snapping apart. There were scabs on the palms of his hands. He felt bandages wrapped around his knees, though he didn't see them. He saw the shape of a black cat curled on the end of the bed. He felt foggy and his nose felt stuffy and blocked and he could tell he was going to get sick. It didn’t seem like the worst thing, taking everything that had happened to him in the past twenty-four hours into account, but still, he felt pretty damn miserable. His throat felt dry and swollen. He wasn’t sure if he would be able to speak if he tried. Not that he wanted to try - it was already painful enough just keeping quiet, and he couldn’t imagine talking would do much to alleviate it.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed and found he was able to stand a lot easier than he had that morning. If it had even been that morning, Micky didn’t know how long he’d been asleep. He didn’t even know how long he had been in the river for - not really, though he didn’t know how long he could have stayed in there and still be alive.

Micky fumbled with the doorknob. The cottage he had found himself in wasn’t very big. The room was small, leading out to a small hallway that led to a small living room. From the hall he heard a tinny radio playing softly. _“She saves her lovin’ … Early in the morning …”_

The sound grew louder the further into the house he stumbled. A lamp sat on a small wooden table beside the couch, and someone had left it turned on. In the dim, yellowy-orange light, Micky’s vision was blurred and cloudy, and he couldn’t make out details. The boy who had saved him was laying on the couch, a small lump with his legs curled up to his chest. The blanket he had wrapped around Micky in the bathroom was now laying over him. He had to have been cold with only the thin, scratchy and worn fabric to cover him. He had given all of his other blankets to Micky.

If he had told Micky his name, then he did not remember it. He was shivering in his sleep. It felt strange to be able to stand and watch him without the other boy noticing it. Micky had been so frightened he hadn’t taken in many of his features he had seen properly when he was awake. He still couldn’t take in many of the finer details without his glasses, but he could see thin eyebrows, a long and pointed nose, long dark hair that splayed across the pillow and prominent sideburns. He looked several years younger when he was asleep, but maybe that was just because when Micky had first seen him, worry and fear had drawn lines and wrinkles over his features. It felt unnatural to see him in a vulnerable position, like their roles had been reversed, and Micky didn’t know what to do. He took the blankets from his shoulders and lay it over the boy on the sofa.

The radio was resting on the coffee table, still playing the same song. 

_“I got a woman …”_ it crooned. _“Way over town … She’s good t-”_

Micky switched it off and went back to bed.


	2. Zanzibar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Melodrama’s so much fun,  
> In black and white for everyone to see”

_ 1966. _

Micky drove through his neighbourhood with an excitement that thrilled him right to the tips of the fingers that clutched the steering wheel. It was a quiet night, but that meant nothing to him as he drove his dad’s car with the top down. The cool breeze in his hair did nothing to cool his nerves, but that was just fine by him - the nerves only spurred him on, making him feel giddy and on the edge of his seat. 

His parents didn’t know he was going out that night. His dad didn’t know he had taken the car. But Micky didn’t think he particularly cared what they would say to him if they were awake when he got back. His eighteenth birthday had been and gone last month and he had never felt more invincible.

The headlights shone bright ahead of him as he made his way to the more lively parts of town where all the other long-haired weirdos hung out. His fingers gently tapped out a rhythm on the steering wheel without him entirely realising what he was doing. He was keyed up with anticipation for what the night could bring. His hopes were as high as his ambitions and he didn’t think anything could bring him down from that cloud. Cloud or ledge, he didn’t know. Whatever. If he fell, the difference wouldn’t mean a thing.

But he was sure he wouldn’t fall.

A few of Micky’s friends had formed a band a little before high school had ended and had continued going with it after they had all graduated. Micky hadn’t been invited to join when the band had first formed, but he hadn’t been too hung up on it at the time. They had already had a singer (a guy Micky had hung around with called Russ) by the time they had thought about him, and besides, it was more of Russ’s scene than his. Micky had a good voice - a more-than-good voice, even - but he was perfectly content to be a bystander when it came to music.

But he had to admit that, after sitting in on countless rehearsals and going to all of their gigs, he was beginning to see the appeal. Watching them was like magic. His mind raced at a million times a minute just thinking about being able to be a part of it. But he hadn’t wanted to step on his friends’ toes, so he mentioned none of his wishes.

That was, until Russ was down sick and there wasn’t enough time to cancel the gig and they were one lead singer short. And, knowing Micky knew all the words and had a voice of his own, they had asked him to fill in. He hadn’t even thought twice about accepting.

His fingers continued to drum on the steering wheel, becoming more energetic the closer to the venue he got. His stomach was twisting itself into intricate knots, but still he couldn’t stop himself from smiling. He may have been driving a little too quickly.

He met the rest of the band inside, setting up microphones and amps as young people came and went throughout the room, waiting for the music to start. Dean, the lead guitarist, smiled at him. Micky beamed back.

“I hope I’m not too late,” he said as an apology. “Had to wait ‘til I could get the car.”

“We’ve just got a few more mic stands, then we’ll be ready to go,” Dean explained. He seemed unsure of Micky, and of how this night would go. Micky had never felt more sure of himself, but Dean would see that soon.

“Great,” Micky smiled once again, before flitting around the stage, helping adjust the mics. The rest of the band seemed just as tense and unsure of themselves as Dean did. Their movements were unsteady and slow. Micky, however, was bursting with almost manic energy. He couldn’t stop his hands from moving and his feet from tapping.

It didn’t take long for the chatter of the room to dull as it was obvious they were about to start playing. Mitch, the bassist, plucked a few notes to test the amps, and they were all looking to one another, to see if they were all ready. At that moment, the club owner crossed to the stage, and Micky and the band huddled close to see what he had to say. He gave each member a once-over, and stopped at Micky. Then he turned to Dean.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” he said quietly. Dean nodded in response, and the club owner seemed satisfied. Micky tried not to let the rest of the bands’ energy get him down. He knew he was the new guy, but  _ jeez,  _ have some  _ faith. _

They all took their positions on stage. Micky gave one last look to Dean, who nodded in a way that Micky hoped was supportive.

He heard Dean counting them in behind him. Before he knew it, their set was starting and he was jumping into the first song, a fire in his gut that flared and danced as he sang. He wasted no time with coyness, choosing instead to dive head first into the song and dance. If this would be his one opportunity, he was going to give the people a good show. He wanted to get the full experience in as short a time as he could.

And Micky was a natural showman. He had always known how to entertain, how to act, how to make people happy. And the crowd was certainly loving him, no matter how terrified he felt. He was scared of a lot of things - of falling off the stage, of coming off weird and awkward, of if his singing was pitchy or if he forgot the words - but it didn’t mean a damn thing to anybody else and it never would. 

_ “Get your kicks on route 66!”  _ he sang, gripping the mic tightly in his hand and leaning into the words with eyes shut tight. With his eyes closed he could hear laughter and singing and some cheers. With them open he could see people dancing all in front of him. He could see girls with short skirts and boys with long hair. And they were all smiling for him. 

He remembered thinking that he could get used to this as he sang song after song after song. He could get used to the excitement of performing and the validation that came when he did it well.

It was coming to the end of the last song and he had slid to his knees. A girl was looking in his direction. He smiled for a second, not un-flirtatiously, and sized her up. Somehow in amongst all of the hubbub of the dancefloor, she kept his gaze, and he winked in her direction. He held a note, sang a little louder, and gripped the wire of the microphone that was twirled around his finger a little tighter.

The crowd seemed disappointed when their set ended. The band was looking at Micky as if they had never met him in their life, and Mitch clapped him on the back as they packed up the instruments. Micky was out of breath and his knees were sore, but he hardly noticed over the blood pounding in his ears. 

He was the last one out after the rest of the band had packed up, exchanged pleasantries and talked about how well the night had gone, and headed out to their cars. Micky had wanted to stay for a while longer to check out the follow up act and to see if he could find that girl again. He had hardly sat down at the bar before the club owner approached him again.

He set down a bottle of Coke in front of Micky before he said, “You sure were great out there kid. A natural on stage.”

“Gee thanks, Mister!” Micky grinned from ear to ear as he took the Coke.

“Micky is it?” The man asked. Micky nodded. “I’m gonna cut right to the chase, Micky, I want you as a regular. The crowd really loved you, and I think you could be good for business.”

Micky’s mouth opened in surprise and his fingers danced on the bottle. “I’m only filling in for the usual singer,” he said, with a short chuckle. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s a shame,” the club owner tutted with a shrug of his shoulders. “You got a million dollar voice there, and the confidence to match.”

Micky bit his lip as he scratched at the label of the Coke bottle. He didn’t want to be the kind of asshole that would steal Russ’s spotlight when he had been so much more passionate about the band than Micky had from the very beginning. But it would be a good chance for the rest of the band. Those guys really wanted to make it, and Micky could very well be their one shot at, at the very least, making a little bit of bread.

“I’ll think about it,” Micky decided. “I’ll have to talk to the other guys.”

The club owner nodded with a grin that seemed satisfied. “Don’t think too hard.”

The man left Micky to think things over after that, although Micky didn’t actually do too much thinking. Thinking about business and hard decisions could come later, because for now, he had caught a glimpse of the girl coming over to him and he didn’t have to make up his mind about  _ her  _ any which ways.

He sipped the remaining drops of his Coke casually as she approached, trying not to seem too excited. Once she was close enough she smiled brightly and leaned into his ear. “I’ve never seen you ‘round here,” she said, the smile visible in her voice. “I’m Linda.”

She pulled away to see Micky’s response. He looked in her eyes, down to her lips, back to her eyes. “Micky.”

She hadn’t stopped smiling. She had a sweet looking smile, all teeth, and eyes that wrinkled deeply at the corners. Long eyelashes, blue eyes, black hair. Pointed features, but delicate looking all the same.

“Did you want to go outside?” Micky asked, taking her hand. “Easier to talk out there.”

They didn’t end up talking all too much. Instead, Micky had pushed her gently up against his car and kissed her. She didn’t seem to have any objections. Her hair was long and hung in a way that tickled and brushed against Micky’s knuckles as he held her face in his hands. He could tell her lipstick was rubbing off on him, but he had never minded that before. There was something a little sentimental about it, even if he was only kissing a girl he had hardly spoken to and was trying to figure out the fastest way into her bed.

It was as he was thinking about this - figuring out the logistics of going home with her, or her going with him - that he remembered the car. He had to have it back by morning. His parents were at home. He had to be back by morning.

He blushed deeply as he pulled away, and she seemed disappointed (or maybe her lips just looked pouty from all the kissing). He was too embarrassed to say he couldn’t take her home because he still lived with his parents - _that,_ for sure, would kill the rockstar illusion. 

He smiled playfully as they parted, their noses still touching.

“I hate to leave ya so soon,” he said, sticking to vaguery. “But I’ve got places to be, babe.”

“Raincheck?” She asked.

“Sure,” Micky answered with a softened grin. “I’ll see you later sometime.”

She grabbed his hand and slipped a piece of paper to him before kissing him one last time. She patted him on the cheek and left with a wink.

All in all, Micky had thought that his night had gone pretty damn well. He hadn’t fallen, hadn’t even lost his balance, and he somehow felt more invincible than before. He didn’t think it was possible for things to not turn out his way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((if it wasn't obvious from the fact that micky is in a. wildly different setting, this is a flashback))


	3. A Horse With No Name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I've been through the desert on a horse with no name  
> It felt good to get out of the rain."

The first thing Micky thought when he woke up was about how hungry he was. He didn’t know how long he had slept for, but he knew it had most likely been over a day since he had last eaten. His second thought was to survey his surroundings. 

He hadn’t been surprised about waking up in a stranger’s bed this time, but it had still felt strange to not open his eyes and see his own room. The lack of familiarity left an aching in his chest, though that could have simply been his ribs complaining after coughing his lungs out the day before. It occurred to him that this was the first time he was properly seeing the boy’s room in the morning (he assumed it was morning) light. It looked about the same as it did in the dark, just with the gaps filled in. He hadn’t seen it in colour yet - the blue curtains, blue blankets, beige carpet, brown dresser. The room was neat and the few belongings told Micky nothing about the owner of the bedroom, besides the record player and records in a crate and the guitar in the corner, painted with colourful and intricate patterns. He wondered if the guy was a painter or a guitarist or both.

The utter absence of anything like his own home, which was filled with trinkets and cluttered with mess, only made it more obvious that he wasn’t where he should be. He had no money, no idea where he had ended up, and no way of getting back. And thoughts about going home, whether his family was looking for him, whether they had noticed he was missing, were too complicated to spend too much time mulling over when his brain felt like soup.

Thoughts of home also brought back thoughts of a night spent in a river, and he pushed those away just as fast as they came.

He could hear someone in the kitchen and he could smell bacon and eggs cooking. That was probably a good sign that it was morning.

The same boy who had taken him in and had been sleeping on the couch the night before was in the kitchen, cooking breakfast. When he turned to see Micky standing silently (miserably) in the hall with the blanket wrapped around his shoulders, he jumped in fright, almost dropping the plate of bacon he was holding. He breathed a deep sigh as he calmed.

“You scared me,” he mumbled, a strong southern twang to his words. His voice was careful. Self-conscious. He laid the plate down on the small dining table and motioned to the chair, not meeting Micky’s eyes. “Sit.”

Micky followed his instruction and sat in front of the food, though the smell was making him lose his appetite. It didn’t smell  _ bad _ , but it just felt like so much all at once that he was getting dizzy. Not to mention that his nose was so goddamn runny that the boy probably thought he was really gross (as if he hadn’t seen Micky in a much grosser state already. But Micky hadn’t exactly been in a good enough frame of mind to be self conscious about  _ that _ in the moment). He had always hated feeling sick when he was younger, and he had those exact same feelings that were multiplied tenfold by the unique circumstances he had found himself in.

Micky picked up the knife and fork that had been set on his plate, and startled as the black cat jumped onto the table all of a sudden and started crowding his plate. He shooed it away.

“That’s Fish,” the boy said, and Micky wondered if he had misheard him for a moment. “My friend Peter named him that, so … And I’m Mike. I uh, forgot to tell ya that yesterday mornin’.”

Micky didn’t say anything in response. His throat still felt swollen, and he didn’t know what he could even ask. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to know where he was just yet: that would mean he would start thinking about how far away he was from home, and he didn’t want to think about home. What else was there to say besides that? Sorry for drowning in your river?

“Fish is the one who found you,” Mike noted, sitting down to eat his own breakfast at the table. “If it hadn’t’ve been for him …”

Micky gulped, losing more of his appetite as he thought of the possibilities. He didn’t think Mike had intended to scare him, but it’s what he had done nonetheless. Micky didn’t like thinking about his own mortality, especially after he had had such a close call. He certainly hadn’t  _ wanted  _ to die, but he couldn’t help thinking that maybe it would have been a lot less complicated if he had. He couldn’t quite figure out if finding a dead body in his backyard would be less of a hassle than finding a live one _. _ Though there was no point in worrying about it now; Micky had lived, and that was that. 

Micky felt a little bit guilty about shooing away Fish, and decided to scratch him under the chin as a thank you. He purred, and Micky pushed the half a piece of bacon that he couldn’t bring himself to eat in his direction.

“I think he likes you,” Mike said. “He’s not usually this friendly. He wasn’t when I found him, at least, but he likes me just fine now. He liked Peter right off the bat, but that’s because everyone likes Peter. Him and Davy didn’t get along for a long time, though, and I’m not sure if they still hate each other or if they just tolerate one another … Davy’s, um, Davy’s Peter’s roommate. He’s my friend, too.”

“You talk about him like he’s a real person,” Micky said, speaking for the first time that morning, his voice coming out hoarse and croaking. He didn’t take his eyes off of Fish as he patted him. 

Mike seemed surprised Micky had spoken and he wouldn’t have to end up rambling himself to death in the effort of filling the awkward silence. “He acts like one sometimes. Well, whatever he acts like, it ain’t a cat.”

Micky didn’t say anything again. He was exhausted and his head was pounding and he was finding it hard to muster up the energy to keep up a conversation. He pushed the plate towards Mike. “I’m going back to bed,” he mumbled. Then on second thought, he added, “Thanks.” It didn’t feel like enough, but it was all he could manage.

It didn’t take long for Micky to drift off again once he was in bed (and had stopped sneezing). He woke up once to Mike in his room - or Mike in his  _ own  _ room, more like it - fiddling on the bedside table. He startled again when he saw Micky had opened his eyes and was sitting up, and Micky wondered if he was always this jumpy.

“I went into town to get you tissues and some medicine,” he explained, his voice somewhere between a murmur and a whisper. “Just some aspirin and antibiotics and everythin’.”

Micky reached out for the pills and the cup of water Mike had left on the bedside table. Fish had jumped onto the bed and was pacing around Micky’s knees. He picked the cat up and set him down beside him. Mike only turned to leave once Micky was once again resting his head on the pillows and closing his eyes.

Micky woke up once more later that day. There was still sunlight seeping through the gaps in the curtains, though the room was dimmer than before. He had woken up to voices in the living room, specifically a loud British voice. He couldn’t hear what was being said other than a single question - “Is he awake?” - but his first thought was that Mike had called the police and they had come to take him home. The thought terrified him. Initially, he stayed in bed, straining his ears to hear what was being said, thinking that if he stayed quiet he wouldn’t be found. But before long he grew tired of waiting for his fate so he threw off the covers and left to investigate, his bare feet padding quietly across the wooden floor.

In the living room, three pairs of eyes stared at him and he stared back. Two strangers sat holding cards on the couch while Mike sat cross legged on the floor beside the coffee table where the deck of cards sat. Mike was the first to speak.

“Micky, you oughtta go back to bed,” he said. Micky ignored him.

“Who’re these guys, Mike?” he asked. They looked to Mike, waiting to be introduced. One of them was short, though it was hard to tell just how short while he was sitting, and he looked young, with an intense gaze and thick eyebrows. The other was blond, with long hair and a colourful outfit with beads around his neck.

“These are my friends I told you about,” he answered, pointing to one, then the other. “Davy and Peter.”

“You look like shit,” Davy said. His was the British voice he had heard before. “Where’d you even come from anyway? Do you live in town? I’ve never seen you before. How’d you end up here of all places?”

Micky said nothing as Davy bombarded him with questions, only gaping dumbly at him. How could he sum it all up concisely in words? He didn’t think Davy even expected him to answer all the questions he was lobbing at him. 

“He doesn’t have to talk about it if he doesn’t want to,” Peter chided cooly. Davy backed off immediately, pouting and crossing his arm.

Mike stood, laying his cards face up, letting everyone see his hand. But nobody was looking at what cards he had - they were all looking at Micky. Mike touched a hand to his shoulder and led him gently back to the room. “I’m sorry about him.”

Micky pursed his lips at how Mike treated him as he sat back down on the bed with the twisted covers and messed up sheets. He didn’t like feeling so damn vulnerable all the time.

“You  _ do  _ look like shit,” Mike said, then seemed to blush at his harsh wording (though the light in the room was too dim to see clearly).

“Thanks,” Micky grumbled.

“I’m sorry, I only meant …” Mike trailed off. “Did you need anything? Are you hungry?”

“I’m fine,” Micky replied. “Just a little hot.”

Mike nodded and took away some of the blankets and left them piled in the corner of the room in case Micky needed them later. “Wait here,” he said, and left. It wasn’t long before he was coming back in the room with a run down looking portable fan that he plugged into the wall and left facing the bed. Then he left again and brought back a fresh glass of water. “You should get some rest. It had to’ve taken a lot outta you, and besides, you’re not well.”

Micky was already sick of sleeping all the time, but he was still so exhausted. He downed the glass of water in quick gulps then laid back down on the bed. Mike seemed satisfied with that, and left to go out to Davy and Peter.

Micky didn’t drift off as easily that time. He spent a while listening to the three of them talk, wishing just a little that he could join the action. He was dreadfully bored with resting and sleeping, and there wasn’t much in the room to look at to keep him entertained. Eventually the mumbled sound of voices lulled him into sleeping. He wondered what they could be saying. And was that a banjo? And a harmonica? 

He was asleep before he could question it for much longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fish my beloved <3


	4. I Got A Woman II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I got a woman way over town  
> She's good to me, she's good to me."

_ 1967. _

It had been a year since Micky had first performed for an audience, and he could only go up from there.

He had spoken to the rest of the band about the club owner’s offer, and they had seemed more than enthusiastic to accept the offer. All except Russ. Which was understandable, and Micky felt guilty for it, knowing he had undeniably played a part in getting him fired. But he had also played a part in getting some solid gigs for the rest of the guys, so he figured it was for the greater good and gave Russ a sympathetic apology before he stormed out of Dean’s garage. Micky had the feeling Russ knew he was living on borrowed time the second they had asked him to fill in.

Russ formed a new band with some two other guys and a girl, and they had some rivalry, but Micky’s band was only rising in popularity in town as Russ’s stayed relatively the same.

Life seemed to be a dream for Micky. The club owner paid them well, better than he had expected (but what did he know about the music scene?) and word got around quick about a local up-and-coming band that could put on just as good a show as The Beatles or the Stones or any of the mainstream rock ‘n’ rollers. They were good for business, they drew in crowds, and soon more clubs were seeking them out for gigs. Most days were spent rehearsing and most nights were spent singing late into the night. Micky wondered if he would ever be able to get a good night’s sleep again. But that didn’t matter much when there were clubs to go to, people to talk to, songs to learn the words to. He could put it on hold.

He had moved out of his parents’ place once he had saved enough money, and he’d quit his day job too. He had his own car now. He liked independence. He felt like he had really made it - only nineteen and already on his own and making a decent enough living to drive a flashy car and live in a nice house. He got lonely at nights, when he didn’t have anywhere to go and everything was quiet on his street and in his house. But he didn’t spend much time at home, anyway.

They hadn’t really ‘made it’ made it. They didn’t have a recording contract, they weren’t well known outside of town (and in a few of the neighbouring towns that offered them gigs every now and then). They were big fish in a small pond, but people loved them all the same. It  _ felt  _ like stardom even if it was hardly close to the real thing. 

He had fooled around with Linda for a while, but nothing serious ever really came from it. He had fooled around with a lot of girls in a year. They seemed to like his singing a lot - or maybe they just liked the idea of hooking up with a musician, and he was more easily accessible than a Beatle or one of the Stones. And maybe if Micky did get world famous they could say that they had got there first. Micky didn’t mind that all that much. He just liked being able to take a nice girl home and show her some fun (he hoped it was fun on her end) and have someone to wake up with in the morning. He had always hated sleeping alone.

Eventually, the casual hookups slowed down when he met Nancy.

Nancy was a tall girl, nearly as tall as him, with a way about her that was confident in a quiet sort of way. She didn’t speak much, but when she did, whatever she said sounded eloquent and intriguing. She made you want to know more about whatever she was speaking about and hang onto every word. She laughed a lot, covering her mouth with her hand as she did. She had long black hair and dark eyes and dressed in dark clothes.

She liked his singing and she liked his performing and she liked how he looked on stage, but she didn’t seem to care about it in the way that the other girls did. It was a reason to respect him, but not the  _ only  _ reason to like him. Or that was how she had acted when they had first met, at least. She had enjoyed the show, complimented his voice, but she wasn’t flirting when she said it.

She was in the crowd now, as she sometimes was, as Micky ran through  _ ‘I Got A Woman.’  _ He had done his James Brown bit at many shows before - dancing across the stage, running himself ragged, pretending he was too exhausted to go on, before launching back into the song with revitalised energy. The crowd ate it up every time. He knew the whole procedure very well.

Micky sought out Nancy and found her at the bar, speaking to the bartender as he sang. At the back of the dancefloor people were dancing along, near the front of the stage girls were fawning over him. He wondered if she ever got jealous of that. She never showed it. She wasn’t looking at him.

Micky was on his knees, just about tearing holes in his slacks as the song continued. He leaned into the mic, giving it his all, as he always did.  _ “I got a woman! Way over town … She’s good to me … She’s good to me …”  _ No matter how many holes he tore into the knees of his pants, no matter how many burns he got from the hard wood of the stage, she never looked up from her drink for a moment.

Micky wondered if she did it on purpose. Drove him crazy by ignoring him just so he didn’t end up feeling a little  _ too  _ important. She bragged about her boyfriend’s job to her friends but didn’t care less about it when they were together. He supposed he should thank her for keeping his ego in check.

To say they had a tumultuous relationship would have been an understatement. They were on again and off again and on again and off again, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. She would say he was too needy, he would say she was too cold, and they would call it quits. Nancy would fuck other guys and Micky would fuck other girls, but every time something would always lead him back to her - a girl that laughed the same way she did, or wore the same lipstick she did, or did her hair the same way. Or he simply missed her company and the conversations they had together. Every time he would crawl back to her, she would treat him the same way she did when they had first started dating (like she actually  _ liked  _ him and the things he had to say). She would run her fingers through his hair and call him pet names and Micky would always, always forget about how she started to act when she got bored of him. Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat.

Micky wondered if she actually did respect him - if she had more reasons to like him other than he sang alright and could draw in a crowd. Sometimes she didn’t even seem to like that. He wondered if the way she hadn’t seemed to care about his music as much as she cared about capital-letter-Him had been just an act to draw him in, and that was all she cared about all along. He wondered if she had just been smarter about making sure he stuck around so she could brag about who she was dating to her friends and to the girls who wanted to take her place. Maybe that was why she always got tired of him. Dating someone for the image was all fine and good for a while, but you couldn’t hinge everything on it. The infatuation never lasted very long.

But he didn’t like to mull that over too much. They were just the bitter thoughts that surfaced whenever they were going through a rough patch and Micky had had a little too much to drink. He had a job he liked, he ended every night with a thrill that ran through him from his head to his toes, and he had a house and a car and people liked him and he had a girl who was by his side most of the time. He didn’t think it could get better than that.

Nancy continued ignoring him as he ended the song, riffing off of the original lyrics, improvising lines and singing with his entire body.  _ “I got a woman! Way over town! She’s good to me, she’s good to me, she’s good to me.”  _ The crowd cheered for him. Dean clapped him on the back as he always did after a good show. He knew Nancy was overdue for breaking things off with him. He knew what was coming. But he thought that maybe, in the post show clarity and as boys and girls clapped for him, that he could handle it this time. He thought he could make do with only strangers loving him, even if they would never know him as well as Nancy did. But, then again, he thought that every time. Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat.

But still, he figured his life was a good one. He figured things couldn’t get better than this.


	5. You Can't Judge A Book By It's Cover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You can't judge one by looking at the other  
> You can't judge a book by looking at the cover."

It was strange, living with Mike. It was so quiet compared to the life he had become so used to - the life he had only very recently left behind. It seemed like a completely different lifetime to the one he was living now. 

Micky didn’t remember much of the first week he was there, since most of the time he was either delirious with fever or trying to sleep it off. When he woke up, if he had the strength, he would sit up and drink the glass of water Mike had left for him, and pick the cat up and place him down on his lap. He almost always woke to find Fish sleeping at the end of his bed.

He got worse before he got better. When things were really bad he was completely bedridden, never leaving the room except to use the bathroom. Most of the water he drank he sweated out in his sleep. At mealtimes Mike would wake him up by shaking him by the shoulder and bring him a plate of food that he didn’t touch. When he wasn’t sleeping he was going back and forth between feeling so hot he thought he would melt and feeling so cold he couldn’t stop trembling from uncontrollable shivers. During the worst of it Mike asked Micky if he should take him to the hospital. Micky had refused, begging and pleading with Mike not to take him, whining and whimpering drearily and weakly. He probably looked a lot like a dying cat. Mike didn’t seem convinced that he shouldn’t go, but Micky’s reaction at being asked seemed to scare him away from trying to convince him. Micky was acutely aware of how pathetic he had looked then as he was almost brought to tears, and how his whimpered begging sounded like a child that didn’t want to be taken to school, but he was half-deranged and fell back asleep before he could feel embarrassed about it.

He felt completely useless with nothing to do but sleep and sneeze and cough and feel depressed. He needed to use his hands for something to keep him occupied, but all his hands were good for were picking up glasses of water and aspirin. 

He supposed it was good, at the very least, that, while his bedridden situation kept him bored and understimulated, the pain of the symptoms and the constant sleep kept him from thinking too much about home. Sometimes he wondered if Nancy missed him. Sometimes he wondered if she was worried about him. Sometimes he wondered if she would go looking for him. But he didn’t like the answers that came from those questions, and he found himself wishing that he would be overcome with nausea again, or that his throat would close shut and he would struggle getting air into his lungs, just so he didn’t have to wonder.

Mike left him clothes at the end of the bed but by the middle of the first week he didn’t bother changing into them. He knew that in a few days he would look back and feel mortified at how low of a state he had let a stranger see him in. But Mike never seemed repulsed by him, only ever terrified of him. Or  _ for  _ him, more likely, but Micky had never had all that great self esteem to be able to tell himself that.

Micky didn’t think he could feel any worse (and that was coming from someone who had purposefully jumped in a river to drown). But after things got worse, things started to get better too.

Later in the week, Mike came to his bedroom to refill the glass of water and found Micky sitting up, playing with Fish by moving the blanket out from underneath him until he attacked it. He didn’t feel much like going back to sleep.

“Are ya feeling better?” Mike asked. He hadn’t talked to Micky much, most likely sensing he had been too sick to take much of it in. Or he was just shy.

Micky nodded and yawned. He couldn’t seem to stop yawning, no matter how much he slept. “I’ve had enough sleep for the next hundred years. Talk about forty-winks, more like forty- _ thousand _ -winks.” He gave out a weak chuckle that turned into a coughing fit. Mike frowned with concern, but Micky came out of it with a smile that was only a little bit self-conscious. “Sorry.”

Mike pulled out the chair from the desk and sat with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped in front of him. His thumbs fiddled absent-mindedly. “What’s your full name, Micky?”

Micky laughed again at that, abruptly. Mike was cutting right to the chase, wasn’t he? “What, you need to know what name to look out for in the newspapers? Need to know how to report me?”

“N-no, I … was just curious,” Mike stammered, taken aback by Micky’s brashness. Mike wasn’t a good liar.

“It’s okay, I get it,” Micky said as an apology for coming off rude. “It’s George Michael Dolenz ... Yours?”

“Robert Michael Nesmith,” he replied, with a smile quirking at the corners of his mouth. “But don’t go ‘round callin’ me Bob. Just Mike’s fine.”

“Gonna throw me back in the river if I do?” Micky quipped. Mike was surprised at his sense of humour over what had happened to him, but still a smile continued to play at his lips.

They sat in uncomfortable, thick silence for a moment, Mike wringing and squeezing his hands together. Micky felt just as fidgety, but he didn’t want to show it, so he petted Fish instead to keep his hands busy. Eventually Mike broke the silence, cutting through it with his words. “You should rest.”

“I can’t keep sleeping all week,” Micky complained, though he knew he was getting tired just from speaking. “I’ll go insane.”

Mike bit his lip and ran a hand through his hair. “Do you like music?”

“What kind of question is that?” Micky laughed again, even though it hurt his throat. “Who doesn’t like music?” He didn’t mention that he had lived and breathed music just a week prior.

Mike shrugged. He crossed the room until he reached the crate of records and flicked through. He seemed to already have one in mind, however, as he didn’t take long to settle on something and place it down on the record player. It was an album by Bo Diddley, but Micky didn’t know enough about Bo Diddley to be able to name it. The song was familiar, though, and he would have sung along had his throat not been killing him.

Instead he pointed to the guitar in the corner of the room. “Did you paint that yourself?”

“Huh? Oh, no. That was a gift from Davy and Peter,” Mike explained. “Davy bought the guitar and Peter painted it.”

“Do you play or is it just decorative?” Micky asked.

“I play,” Mike said with a nod. His voice was stilted and awkward-sounding. “Peter and I have a little folk duo thing going on in town, but we haven’t gotten very far with it, mostly just passin’ the hat type of thing. Did you want me to play?”

“Nah, I’m sorry, man,” Micky croaked and yawned again. “I got a killer headache. Maybe some other time. But a folk duo? You oughtta go to New York for that kind of scene. Or California.”

“Well, we ain’t tryin’ to be the next Simon and Garfunkel or nothin’,” Mike mumbled. Then he started rambling about the kind of things he and Peter did at their gigs, how sometimes Davy came and sang with them, but mostly the music wasn’t really his style. Had Micky not been sick, he would have been interested to hear it, having come from a background of rock and roll and discotheques. But despite the conversation and the fact that he had said he didn’t want to sleep, he could feel himself nodding off. Mike could probably tell too from the way his head slid back down to the pillows and how he couldn’t keep his eyes open for very long. His story trailed off and he lifted Fish from Micky’s lap and tucked the blankets around him before saying, “Goodnight, Mick.” 

“G’night,” Micky mumbled back, even though it was still the middle of the day.

The day after that Micky brought himself to eat some of the food that Mike brought in for him. The smell almost made him feel like puking, but he forced it down all the same. And he felt a little better afterwards.

The day after that he pulled himself up to stand and stretched his arms and legs. He didn’t realise how much the lack of use made them ache. He finally got dressed, too. Mike had a full length mirror leaning against the wall, and Micky saw his reflection in it: his skin pale and discoloured, his nose red and flushed, the shadows dark underneath his eyes. He needed a shave. When he took off his shirt he made the mistake of glancing in the mirror and seeing how skinny he had become in just a week. He looked well and truly dishevelled. He hated thinking Mike had seen him this way. Not even Nancy had seen him when he was this down.

The next day Micky left the bedroom. He was struck by the funny notion that he had begun to think of it as  _ his  _ room, when the room and everything inside of it belonged to Mike. He had to remind himself he was simply an intruder.

Though Micky had been sleeping through most of the days, Mike always seemed to be home when he was awake. He wondered if he had work he had to go to, or a life outside of looking after strange boys that floated onto his shore. Although he was home, Mike was either avoiding him or giving him space, because Micky hardly saw him outside of the times in the bedroom when he was giving him water or medicine or food.

Now that he was out and about, he saw Mike more but they spoke just as little. 

The first day Micky had left the bedroom, Mike was sat on the couch, with his guitar on his lap. He paused playing and looked up.

“Did you need anything?” he asked. 

“No, I’m just stretching my legs,” he answered. Mike didn’t start playing again until Micky left the room, maybe to accommodate for if he still had a headache, or because he felt awkward about it.

The next day Micky decided he was long overdue for a bath.

He stripped off (trying to avoid looking in the mirror and seeing his skinny reflection) and sat in the tub, turning on the hot water. The water was running for less than a minute before he heard Mike’s boots quick in the hall and before Micky could question why he was in such a hurry, the door was swinging wide open. Micky jumped in fright, water splashing around him. 

“Mike!” Micky yelled. He tucked his knees up to his chest, though he was facing the opposite wall, and his back was turned. He turned his head to look at him.

“I’m sorry!” Mike almost shrieked. He was glowing bright red, seemingly mortified at what he had done without thinking. He covered his eyes with one hand, the other still holding onto the door knob. “I’m sorry, I just … I just thought … I’m sorry.”

What  _ had  _ he thought? That he was going to try to drown himself again? The thought seemed ridiculous to Micky, but then again, he hadn’t exactly given Mike much of an explanation for everything that had happened before and after being found in the river. It was probably a perfectly reasonable assumption to come to. Then again, maybe he hadn’t thought it at all. Maybe he had simply thought he had left the tap running.

Mike took the hand away from his face, though he was still blushing a unique shade of scarlet. “Did you, um, did you need anything?” he asked. Micky thought for a moment.

“A razor would be nice,” Micky replied. “To shave. And a toothbrush?”

Mike nodded and ratted around in the drawer, bringing out the things Micky had asked for, setting them down on the sink and then he promptly left, shutting the door behind him.

After that, Mike never burst through the door whenever he heard the tap running, but he did lightly knock on the door. From outside he would ask, “Are ya okay, Mick?”

“Yeah,” Micky would call back.  _ ‘Mick’.  _ He felt like crying every time Mike called him that. It felt affectionate. Familiar. Micky felt so lonely that he clung to the thought of Mike caring about him outside of simple obligation.

“Need anything?” Mike would ask back, every single time.

“I’m good, Mike,” Micky would reply. 

The gesture warmed Micky, left him blushing every time, and he didn’t quite understand why. Mike’s concern seemed innately kind, and it was a kindness Micky hadn’t known for a while.

Eventually he could take a bath without Mike having to ask if he was alright.

Micky played with the cat a lot as he was getting better. Whenever Fish crossed his line of sight he would pick him up, hold him close, kiss him on the head and coo at him. Micky supposed that one day Fish got sick of his overwhelming affections, because he fought to get out of his grasp, scratching his arm in the process.

Mike had seen the whole ordeal from the kitchen table. “Fish! That’s not polite!” He scolded.

He set down the sandwich he had been eating and stood, rifling through the drawers in the kitchen as Micky stared at the scratch. In all honesty, he felt a little betrayed. He thought he and Fish were close. 

Mike found what he was looking for (bandages and tissues) and brought them over to Micky. Micky leaned against the table as Mike wordlessly held out his arm, cleaned the blood and started wrapping the bandage around it. He kept his eyes on Micky’s arm, and was he blushing?

“It’s not that deep,” Micky said, his voice still coming out hoarse and nasally. He pulled his arm away and took the bandages from Mike’s hands. He looked Micky in the eyes then. “I can do it myself, Mike. I’m not useless, you know.”

“I wanted to help,” Mike said quietly, and if he hadn’t been blushing before, he was now. He looked like he wanted to say something else, but instead he backed away, separating himself from Micky. 

Micky softened a little, watching Mike as he looked down at his shoes. “You’ve been helping plenty. But I’m not fragile, okay?” That was a lie - Micky had been plenty fragile lately. But he didn’t want Mike to treat him like it.

“Sorry,” Mike said. He said that word a lot.

Eventually, when he deemed that Micky was healthy enough, Mike went back to work. He had a job as a mechanic, working with cars from morning until late afternoon. When Mike wasn’t home the house was even quieter. Though he didn’t speak much unless Micky spoke to him first, there was always some kind of background noise when he was home. He would put on records (usually Bo Diddley), or play small little snippets of tunes on his harmonica, or watch television. Most of the time he was practicing guitar until his fingers bled. Davy and Peter hadn’t been back while Micky was sick, but he had talked to them over the phone sometimes.

Micky was too scared to touch the records for fear of messing up the organisation of everything, so he stuck to watching television on the black and white set that Mike owned. He played the radio when he got bored of the tv. He was getting really good at solitaire. Sometimes he played the guitar, but only when he was well and truly bored out of his mind, because he was scared that Mike would get mad at him for touching it (though he had never seen Mike get mad before). He wasn’t that good of a guitarist anyway. He had played when he was a kid, and Dean had shown him a thing or two, but it was never really his thing.

Soon Mike went back to going to gigs and open mic nights with Peter and Davy at night. He only really saw Mike in the mornings, late afternoons and on his days off.

Micky had never really eaten breakfast much before, but Mike cooked some for the both of them every day. As Micky became more familiar to him, he started talking more as they ate. He never asked Micky about what had happened to him or why he had jumped into the river. Instead he told Micky about his own life, his friends, his music, his coworkers, weird clients and the flashy cars he had seen at work that day. Micky was figuring out that Mike was a bit of a strange guy. He took his harmonica with him everywhere he went, and if he forgot to grab it, he would turn back into the house, in the same way someone would if they almost left without their keys. He could talk for hours about music if he wanted to, but he often didn’t, because when he realised he was talking a bit too much, he would trail off and go quiet with a sheepish expression. He lived alone with his cat that he had found hanging around his house and taken in to look after. His cottage was near the river along the outskirts of town, apparently because it had been cheaper than living in town, and Mike was in need of a place to stay at the time, and then he had just gotten so used to living there he had never found somewhere else.

Mike had been sleeping on the couch for weeks, and with him always getting home late at night, Micky never had a chance to argue with him about it. He felt guilty for taking the bed, when it was  _ Mike’s _ bed. He felt guilty about sleeping in Mike’s room, and eating Mike’s food, and wearing Mike’s clothes.

With a lot of time to himself, and the complete lack of anything that belonged to him in the house, he inevitably found himself thinking about home. Whenever he woke up and saw Mike’s things around him, or when he had to wear Mike’s clothes, he thought about the belongings he had left behind. That always got him to thinking about the people he left behind.

He thought about Nancy a lot - that was no surprise. But he didn’t like thinking about her. He wondered if his ex-band mates had heard the news. They had to. He wondered if they were sad for him, or if they had seen it coming. But thinking about his bandmates got him to thinking about Dean, and he didn’t like that line of thinking much either. He didn’t even let himself come close to thinking about his parents and his sisters. He didn’t want to entertain the thought of how he had probably broken his mother’s heart, how his dad probably thought he was dead. If he didn’t think about it he wouldn’t have to face the facts that with every day he spent at Mike’s house, the longer they went without knowing what had happened to their only son.

He knew it was awful to not go back the second that he was able to. But he was scared. He was scared of what people would say, of what he would have to tell them, of how he would explain it all. Mostly he was scared of going back and finding that nobody had missed him.

Besides, he had no money and no way to get home, and he was torn between thinking that surely Mike just wanted him out of his hair, and not wanting to leave for fear of taking advantage of Mike’s kindness. So, he put himself in a Schrodinger’s cat situation. He was both alive and dead, and if he didn’t think about the people he had abandoned, there were no consequences for his disappearance. And, in any case, he figured it was probably best they be left with no idea what had happened to him, rather than finding out the embarrassing truth. 

He had never thought about what it would really be like to be a missing person. Now that his life had started over, what would he do with it?

One day Mike asked him if he wanted to leave.

He didn’t phrase it like that. He said it more like, “Do you have anyone you can go to? Anyone who would want to know if you’re alright?”

Micky was so surprised Mike had asked that he couldn’t answer. Mike hadn’t asked anything close to the topic of Micky’s home since he had asked his name. And Micky didn’t want to risk Mike knowing that he had a mom and dad and three sisters who were worried about him and that he was an awful brother and an awful son who was so very selfish and so very ashamed. He stuttered and stammered but couldn’t get any coherent words out to service as some sort of reply.

“It’s alright, Mick,” Mike said, his voice soft and soothing, a hand placed over his wrist, a concerned look in his eye. And, god, there was that  _ ‘Mick’  _ again. “I’m more than happy to let you stay as long as you want. I just wanted to know if you needed me to help you out. Take you anywhere you needed to go, ya dig?” 

Micky nodded, not meeting Mike’s eye. “I’d like to stay here for now … If that’s alright.”

“Of course,” Mike said, and smiled sympathetically. That was the last time he asked.

Davy and Peter came over to visit sometimes when Mike wasn’t home. The first time Micky heard the knock on the door he was afraid that it was the police, finally coming to take him home, and his first instinct was to hide and wait for them to leave. But he had opened the door anyway, and breathed a sigh of relief when it was only Mike’s friends. After enough of Davy and Peter’s visits (and once Mike had assured him he was welcome to stay), he gradually stopped getting so spooked by the knock at the door.

Everytime Micky answered the door, Davy would ask if Mike was home, and if he wasn’t, they came inside anyway ‘to wait for him’. Micky suspected that Mike had told them to keep him company while he was away. They had to know that Mike was usually at work on weekdays by now.

He didn’t mind much, however. Davy was loud and abrasive and he had a funny sense of humour. He could be a bit of an asshole at times, but Peter usually reined him in. And Peter was one of the kindest people Micky had met, even if he was a bit slow on the uptake. If Micky was feeling quiet, and in one of his more morose moods and was too tired to speak much, he showed him some songs on his banjo that he and Mike were going to sing together, and Davy would sing the words, and sometimes Peter would teach Micky how to play the chords. Davy ran him through the card games that their little group played often, since Peter got the rules switched around a lot of the time and left Micky more confused than ever when he tried to explain it.

It had been a few weeks since Micky was sick, and Mike was sat on the couch with his guitar in his lap, but not playing. Instead he was clutching one hand in the other, hissing at his sore fingers.

Micky sat down beside him with a cup of tea in his hand. “No gig tonight?” Micky asked, taking a sip of his tea.

“Naw, I got the night off,” Mike replied. Then Micky saw his hands.

“You got blisters again?” Micky asked. Mike blushed, not knowing that Micky had noticed the calluses and blisters he got on his hands from playing guitar.

“I don’t really give ‘em much time to heal,” Mike chuckled softly. Micky set down his tea on the coffee table and held up a pointer finger.

“Wait here,” he said. He stood, crossing to the kitchen and rummaging in the drawer. He was getting used to where everything in the house was by then. He found what he was looking for easily.

He sat back down on the couch and grabbed Mike’s hand while he stared silently in surprise. Micky brought out the box of bandaids he had grabbed and one by one wrapped them around Mike’s fingers. He had never really noticed Mike’s hands before, besides the feeling of rough, calloused fingertips whenever they brushed against him. He had large, sturdy hands, with long, slim fingers, like he had been born to play guitar. 

“I won’t be able to play with these on my fingers, Mick,” Mike complained.

“Oh, hush,” Micky rolled his eyes. “Maybe you should give them a rest for a while.”

“I can’t,” Mike sighed. “I gotta get this song down for Sunday night.”

“That’s not for two days,” Micky said, still holding Mike’s palm in his lap, even though he had finished putting the band aids on his fingers. “And besides, you sounded just fine.”

Mike blushed a little at the compliment. “Thanks,” he mumbled. Mike stared at their hands for a moment, then another, then another. “I haven’t got work tomorrow. I was wonderin’ if you wanted to go out into town. We could get you some clothes of your own.”

Sudden warmth bloomed from Micky, heating his cheeks. “You don’t mind paying for me or anything? I don’t exactly have any of my own money.”

“Why would I mind?” Mike asked. Micky smiled. 

He didn’t answer Mike’s question, but he did bring Mike’s hand to his lips and kissed his knuckles. “Thanks,” he said, then picked up his cup of tea to go to his - no,  _ Mike’s  _ \- room.

Micky should have used that as an opportunity to tell Mike to take his bed back, to tell him that he could take the couch. But he had been so caught off guard by Mike’s gentle kindness. Care and consideration seemed to come so easily to him - with his “of course’s” and his “why would I mind?’s”, and the way he worked himself to the bone every day, but instead of worrying for himself, he got worried whenever Micky woke up afraid and feeling like he had been drowning in his sleep, or was a little too quiet for a little too long. As Micky got dressed to sleep, he resolved himself to mentioning it at the next opportunity. It was the least he could do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ouch! this one hurt a little bit! anyway mike shy cottagecore folkie bf? yeah.


	6. Merry-Go-Round

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "What in the world did you do  
> To make me love just you?"

Micky found it was easy to lose track of how long he had been staying with Mike when he wasn’t thinking about it. Had it been one and a half months or two? Or god, had it been closer to three by now? During the first week he could easily remember how many days it had been, because he had constantly been counting them, but soon he found he had fallen out of the habit, and it required more complex math and counting dates than it was worth.

Eventually both of them had gotten used to having the other around, so much so that Micky had started to think of Mike as his friend, though the thought always scared him because he was sure Mike wouldn’t think the same of him.

If he was Mike’s friend now, that meant he was Davy’s and Peter’s as well. They had certainly warmed up to him faster - were more able to laugh with him and talk with him right off the bat. But Mike’s brand of quiet and caring friendship seemed more genuine, in the way that whenever he opened up and became more comfortable it felt like Micky had earned it somehow. That was what really made Micky feel like he had crossed over from just being a responsibility for Mike, or a chore. 

Mike had been hiding the newspapers since Micky had arrived. Micky hadn’t really noticed until he had stopped. 

That morning, before he and Mike went into town to buy clothes, the newspaper was lying on the kitchen bench. It struck Micky how strange it was that he hadn’t seen one in all the mornings he and Mike had had breakfast together. If he had, would he have seen his own face looking back at him? 

Mike’s back was turned as he cooked the eggs, and Micky took that as his opportunity to snatch up the paper. He skimmed the front, and when that came up with nothing, he flipped through. Nothing in the headlines. He held the paper closer to his face, squinted through the blurriness to scrutinise some of the smaller articles.

“Why’re you holdin’ it like that?” Mike asked and Micky jumped. He set the newspaper down. 

“I can’t see the words well,” Micky mumbled sheepishly. “Don’t have my glasses.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you needed glasses?” Mike asked, and Micky shrugged in response. “We can go and pick some up while we’re out.”

“Are you sure?” Micky asked. “It’s not exactly cheap.”

It was Mike’s turn to shrug. “I don’t mind. If you need glasses, we’ll get you glasses.”

Micky blushed scarlet.  _ ‘We _ ’. There was no  _ we _ in this scenario. But still, he was glad Mike was  _ trying  _ to make Micky feel like he didn’t need Mike to do everything for him. Micky had started doing things around the house, both to quell his boredom and to make up for the fact that Mike had given so much without expecting anything in return. For the sake of his own pride, he didn’t want to just keep taking and taking and giving nothing in return. So while Mike was working he washed their clothes and looked after Fish and worked in the backyard. Mike’s backyard had a small garden - bushes by the walls that had overgrown, planters hanging from the window sills that had nothing in them but wilted flowers and weeds, and an area that could have been a vegetable garden, but housed nothing but weeds and grass. Once Micky was finally well enough to be able to stand long hours on his feet or kneeling he had taken up the project of fixing it up, though it was late winter, and he wasn’t sure much would be able to grow. And he didn’t have any seeds anyway. But it sure looked neater, at least.

They left the cottage in Mike’s beat up car and drove with the top down. Micky had been out only a few times since coming to Mike’s place. Once Mike had asked him if he wanted to come with him to run an errand (sending a letter to his mother from the post office), and afterwards they had gone out for milkshakes. A few times after that Mike asked him to come out to town just to run errands with him again, and Micky was under the assumption that it was because he didn’t want him going crazy inside the house all the time. But it was hard to have many outings when Mike had work and Micky had no way of getting into town himself. Davy and Peter had brought him to go bowling with them, but only once.

Mike took him to a second-hand store that looked like an old warehouse, filled with rows of clothing on racks.

“I’m sorry it ain’t exactly fancy or nothin’,'' Mike apologised, looking at Micky with a bashful sort of expression. He fiddled with the keys in his hand. “But it’s got some nice things if you got the eye for it.”

“It’s perfect, Mike,” Micky said, giving a light chuckle, and patting him on the shoulder. Mike smiled at him. 

Mike trailed behind Micky as he flitted through the racks, picking out shirts and pants he deemed ‘groovy’ enough. After wearing nothing but Mike’s assortment of button downs and tshirts it was nice to find some nice sweaters and colourful loose-fitting shirts more similar to the things Pete or Davy might wear. He found some cheap corduroy pants, jeans and gingham trousers in his measurements too. He didn’t buy many things that were fit for summer - he didn’t know if he would still be there come summer, and he didn’t want to spend too much of Mike’s money. He had a decently sized pile that he was accumulating already.

Mike had left to get him a basket to put his clothes in and when he came back, he said, “You ready to go, honey?” He had been busy with fixing the handles of the basket, and hadn’t been entirely aware that he had said it.

“Honey?” Micky asked. As a knee-jerk reaction, he found himself sneaking a look at their surroundings to see if anyone had been close enough to hear, without really being sure why he was doing it. Mike had said it far too casually for it to have any romantic connotations, even to a stranger. It had the same feeling behind it as when he shortened Micky’s name to ‘Mick’ - a nickname that came rolling off the tongue without a second thought. But it made Micky feel a nervous, fluttery feeling in his gut all the same. He wondered if Mike called Davy and Peter honey, but it seemed like a suspicious question to ask, even when just keeping it to himself, so he tried not to dwell on it.

Mike looked up once Micky had brought attention to what he had said and stopped fiddling with the basket handles. His cheeks were definitely a light shade of pink. “Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Forget it,” Micky said with a laugh that sounded a little too high pitched and stilted and much too loud. “Yeah, I’m ready.” 

Mike drove him to an optometrist in a small square shop in a strip mall in between a clothing outlet and a pet shop. Inside was the usual stuff Micky was used to - covering one eye, trying not to squint when reading rows of letters, looking through pieces of glass and trying to decide which one was clearer when they all felt the same. The whole process was long and overdrawn and Micky worried that Mike was bored. Well, he didn’t have to worry Mike was bored, he  _ knew  _ that Mike had to be bored. What he was worried about was that Mike would hold it against him, that he had been bored because of Micky. But Mike didn’t seem upset as he calmly flicked through some of the catalogues around the store.

Afterwards he tried on different glasses and turned to Mike for his opinion, who gave a smile and a thumbs up no matter if they actually looked good on him or not. Micky rolled his eyes and picked up the least expensive option.

“You don’t have to just go with the cheapest, Micky,” Mike chided. “You can get whichever ones you like best.”

“Is that your way of telling me I look bad in these ones?” Micky asked with a smirk. Mike shook his head and rolled his eyes with a smile. He had gotten used to Micky teasing him.

Micky still didn’t want to spend all of Mike’s money, even if Mike said he didn’t mind. Fortunately for him, there was a pair that looked a little like his old glasses with thinner frames, and they were relatively inexpensive. When Mike paid for them, the man at the counter gave them a funny look that twisted Micky’s gut. He wasn’t sure if Mike had noticed it; he had been fiddling with his wallet, and the look passed as quickly as it came.

When they were outside, Micky put the glasses on and turned to Mike.

“They suit you,” Mike said, and Micky’s lips turned into a smile, almost involuntarily. “You look nice.” Micky liked that judgement a lot better than simple thumbs-ups.

Micky looked at Mike properly. It wasn’t like Micky had never seen Mike before. He had looked at him plenty, memorised his features over the weeks they had been together. But this was high definition. He could see everything a whole lot clearer: the freckles, the wrinkles, the scar under his chin, the stubble on his jaw. As he studied him, he suddenly became aware that Mike was looking back at him.

“You really think so?” Micky asked.

“I do,” Mike said with a nod. 

Micky laughed and took the glasses and slipped them over Mike’s nose. He blinked rapidly as a reaction to the dramatic shift in his vision and Micky laughed harder. “I think they look better on you ... but you’d look good in anything.”

Mike took the glasses off and passed them to back while rubbing at his eyes. “Don’t get used to it, babe, I don’t think I’ll be needing to wear those anytime soon.”

Mike took out his keys from his pockets and they both realised they should probably stop goofing off in the parking lot.

Fish had gotten used to always having someone in the house to give him attention, and seemed betrayed that they had left him alone. When they got home, he swatted at their feet and hid behind the couch. Micky took the clothes they had bought into the bedroom while Mike tried to coax the cat out. By the time he came back out from the room, (now dressed in a paisley shirt he had picked out and the corduroy pants, with the intention of showing Mike that they fit properly) however, Mike wasn’t anywhere in the cottage. 

Micky went to check outside, but didn’t see him anywhere in the garden. He continued down the gravel path to the river bank, though he didn’t have any shoes on and the rocks hurt to walk over.

Micky found him standing near the bank, his hands held behind his back. “Hi,” Micky said as he approached. Mike didn’t startle, only turned to face him.

“Heya,” he said, dragging his eyes up and down Micky’s body. “The clothes look nice.”

“They fit alright,” Micky nodded. “Are you okay? You seem quiet.”

“I’m always quiet,” Mike lightly chuckled. Before Micky could specify  _ ‘quieter than usual’,  _ Mike continued speaking. “Naw, I’m okay, just thinking.”

Micky looked to the bank, where Mike had kept his gaze.

“Is that where you found me?” Micky asked. Mike nodded. A beat of silence. “I’m sorry I’ve been a burden.”

“What?” Mike asked, and he sounded genuinely confused, and Micky realised they had not been on the same wavelength at all. “Oh, no man, that’s not what I’m thinking about.”

“Well what are you thinkin’ about?” Micky pressed.

“Just … you know, success and work and things,” Mike mumbled. “Getting old and wasting my youth and never getting what I want.”

“What do you mean?” Micky asked. It was hard to get Mike to go into detail about what was bothering him.

“I just don’t wanna be goin’ grey and still living by myself in a cottage near the woods, waitin’ for the day something comes around, ‘s all,” Mike sighed. “But it’s nothin’ you oughtta worry about.”

Micky didn’t know how to reply. He didn’t know how to tell Mike that he had been on the other side of that, and he had been too young and naive to handle it. He didn’t know how to say that it wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be, and that it was okay to just be still for a while. It might have come out better (more thoughtful, less cheap) if he could have said all the things on his mind, but he still hadn’t told Mike anything about his old life, and he didn’t know where to start. So instead, he said, “You’re only twenty-two. You’ve got time.”

“I s’pose …” Mike half-heartedly agreed. “But, man, I left Texas to do somethin’ with my life and I ended up quitting before I even got to California.”

“You’re still doing things even if you’re not like … the next Bob Dylan or something, man,” Micky gave a weak chuckle that he hoped sounded more reassuring than mocking. “You’ve got Davy and Peter and besides -” he elbowed Mike “- you gotta look after me now, don’tcha?”

Mike laughed softly with him at that, but it didn’t last for very long until he became serious again. “I don’t want you to think you’re holdin’ me back or nothin’. I couldn’t think that about you.”

“I believe you,” Micky said.

Micky wasn’t sure why that was what had done it - Mike assuring him he wasn’t a burden - but all at once he realised that, good Lord, he was in love with him. He felt like a brick had been dropped on his chest, and he had to look away from Mike because he was afraid it would all be too much. He couldn’t remember what was happening around him during his epiphany, couldn’t remember how the air had felt, or how Mike had looked, or how the rocks underneath his feet were hurting him. All he could remember was closing his eyes and feeling like he was a piece of paper being crumpled into a ball and discarded. He felt like a pile of nerves and he had a sense of dread. How had he let this happen?

He supposed there had been  _ something  _ building for a while. But he had never identified it.

He opened his eyes again to find Mike looking at him. He laughed it off, though the laugh seemed out of place when neither of them had said anything funny.

“Come on,  _ honey _ , let’s go inside,” Micky teased, or tried to at least. His voice came out sounding unnatural and far away.

“Oh, shut up,” Mike snorted at his light teasing of what he had said earlier and shoved his shoulder. “I thought you’d’ve forgotten about that by now.”

“I never forget,” Micky smiled smugly, deflecting whatever was going on inside of his stomach. “I’ll hold it against you for the rest of your life.”

He was glad Mike took it as a joke. Even if he had been intending to tease and poke fun, he still would have meant it, but he didn’t want Mike to know that. He had only just caught on himself, and he wished he hadn’t.

Later that night when it started getting late, Micky was sitting on the couch frowning over solitaire while Mike plucked at his guitar.

“I hate to interrupt your game,” Mike said. “But I’m gettin’ a little tired.”

It took Micky a while to realise Mike had meant that he wanted him to move so he could sleep. 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Micky scoffed. “You can’t keep sleeping on the couch. You take the bed, it belongs to you.”

“I don’t want you sleeping on the couch, Mick,” Mike shook his head.

“Then we’ll share,” Micky argued, crossing his arms. “There’s enough room.”

He hadn’t expected Mike to actually agree. He had mostly just said it to be contrarian. But Mike looked at him for a moment, and shrugged his shoulders. “If you don’t mind.” Micky was speechless.

Mike followed him to the bedroom to get dressed for sleep. Micky was the first to lie down and he couldn’t stop thinking.  _ Why did I do this? Why did I think this was a good idea? Only just figured out I’ve got a crush on the guy and I’m already tricking him into sleeping in my bed. Except it’s not my bed, it’s his bed. Does that make it worse? God, I’m awful.  _

Mike went to sleep quickly, or Micky thought he had. He was completely still, at least. Micky had to turn away to face the wall, he just couldn’t take it.

It was strange to hear Mike’s breathing so close to him.  _ Why did I do this, why did I do this, why did I do this, why did I do this? Jesus, Micky, you’ve really gotten yourself into it now.  _ He felt overwhelmingly guilty, like he had forced Mike into this somehow. He felt selfish beyond belief. Micky just couldn’t stop taking advantage of him, could he?  _ God, I’m awful.  _

He found it hard to sleep when his heart was beating a million beats a minute. He felt like he might explode, and wouldn’t  _ that  _ be a trip - after such a close call with death it was going to be nervousness over sharing a bed with a boy that killed him, like some kind of middle school girl. He was tossing and turning when he felt a hand on his shoulder to stop his restlessness. Then he felt Mike’s arm around him and his voice and breath on his neck, and Micky would have enjoyed it had he not already been feeling so goddamn awful.

“It’s alright, Mick,” Mike whispered. “Go to sleep.  _ Shh _ .”

Micky almost melted when he realised Mike must have thought he was having nightmares again, and that was why he couldn’t sleep. Tears sprang to his eyes as an involuntary reaction at being cared for so tenderly, but they quickly vanished once he had quit feeling so overwhelmed. Where the hell had Mike come from? To be able to be so kind to Micky when he had done nothing to deserve it? And would he still treat him the same if he knew what was going on inside of Micky’s head?

He felt like he couldn’t move, not with Mike’s arm around him, keeping him in place. He willed himself to comply with what Mike had told him to do until the nervousness faded away and he was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol sorry if the glasses stuff is inaccurate i aint ever had an eye test because im Built Different and i got good vision, die mad abt it :/


	7. Psychodrama City

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Said to me, ‘’T ain’t no lie,  
> If I can’t have you, I’d surely die’  
> Psychodrama city, don’t need none today.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: not safe for work stuff and a loooooot of internalised homophobia

_ 1968. _

Micky woke up, feeling breathless, like water was filling his lungs and he was about to start choking. His head ached, so much so that it was hard to see. A pair of arms were wrapped around his middle, palms pressed against the skin of his stomach. Micky groaned and pulled away, rolling over to his opposite side to see the girl beside him.

Micky sat up as he caught sight of the person whose bed he was in. Short black hair, sharp chin, square jaw, flat chest. They weren’t a girl at all.

The shock had woken him up quickly, and sobered him a little too. Through the grogginess, he stood and found his clothes lying scattered across the floor. He stood shakily, feeling like he was swaying from side to side, as if he were trying to get dressed on a boat in rocky waters. Memories from the night before slapped him in the face repeatedly as he struggled to slip one leg into his pants, then the other.

He didn’t look over his shoulder before he left.

_ 1967. _

Micky was tired. He hadn’t been getting much sleep and he was tired.

He wasn’t just tired from lack of sleep. He could feel himself getting more worn out with every show he did. He was starting to realise having a reputation in one town didn’t mean anything, not really. People liked him well enough, guys wanted to be his friend, girls flirted with him, he got invited to parties and he knew a lot of people. But, in the end, being famous in a small bubble wasn’t worth much. It meant the same crowds every night, and things getting stale quickly.

He didn’t know when it had happened, but the whole ordeal had started to feel more and more like a job. Like he had a quota he had to fulfill every night.

He supposed that had happened when the band had left him.

It hadn’t been because of a falling out, and it hadn’t been an ugly breakup. They had just seen that they weren’t getting very far as they were, and were ready to move on. Micky didn’t blame them. It wasn’t their fault that they knew when it was time to quit and he didn’t. 

Micky had continued doing gigs, and he was still making a solid living doing it. Mostly he flitted around to clubs that wanted him to sing for them and had a resident band he could use. If he could pinpoint where his job had started feeling like a chore, that was what he would choose. It really didn’t feel the same without the camaraderie of performing with his friends (though before they quit, they had started to feel more like coworkers, and they had hardly spoken after parting ways).

He supposed he was getting burnt out. His family could see it, and they worried about him. He hadn’t exactly been a good son or a good brother, either. Most of his free time he spent with Nancy or at parties and when Nancy was through with him for the thousandth time, he stayed home during the day, smoking. At night he went to gigs where he took home whichever girl had made the mistake of flirting with him that night.

It was coming up to New Years Eve, and Nancy had decided that Micky was worth her time that week, though that was becoming just as bothersome as the off periods. After over a year, Micky was starting to ask himself if it was worth it. If there was one thing that could be said about him, it was that he didn’t know when to call it quits. He figured he would stick this out ‘til it killed him, if only because he was afraid of change, and of what it would mean if Nancy was out of his life forever.

He knew that he would stick it out when they were going to a New Years party together, and when she was breaking up with him in the middle of it, and when he was driving home early drunk and when he was popping a bottle of wine alone in his quiet house and listening to the countdown on the radio.

_ 1968. _

On January 1st, Micky had a gig. 

The club owner had called him last minute the day before when the regular lead singer had backed out. Micky spent most of the day resting until it was time to go and he had to leave the couch to get dressed and go out.

He was tired and he hadn’t slept well, but he expected he would get through it, like he had a million times before.

What he hadn’t been expecting, however, was to recognise the guitarist.

Micky had been looking around the club, his back turned to the stage, and assessing the capacity of the joint. That was when he felt a tap on his shoulder.

“Micky?” The stranger behind him asked. Micky turned to see who the voice belonged to.

“Dean?” He asked, though he knew the answer to the question. He wrapped the other boy into a hug. “How ya been, man?”

Dean laughed. “I’ve been gettin’ on. Same as you, I take it.”

“Yeah,” Micky chuckled. “Yeah.”

Dean looked around at the band setting up around them.

“We ain’t got much time to catch up before the set,” Dean said. “Did you want to get a drink after?”

“Of course,” Micky agreed with a smile. It struck him how odd it was, how they had only been apart six months at best, but they spoke to each other like they were much older friends who hadn’t seen each other since high school had ended. He supposed things had changed a lot since the band had broken up - probably more so on Dean’s part than Micky’s.

The whole night Micky wanted nothing more than for the show to end. When it finally did, he waited at the bar for Dean, perhaps a little too eagerly. Micky perked up when he saw him making his way over and felt pathetic for it.

Eventually Dean was sliding onto the stool beside him and ordering a drink for each of them. Micky didn’t ask him what he’d ordered.

“So what have you been up to, man?” Micky asked. He had been desperate to know. “Do you speak to the other guys much?”

“Every now and then,” Dean shrugged. The bartender placed their drinks in front of them and Dean took a sip. “Most of them’ve moved on, gotten real jobs. Mitch’s gone to college, but I don’t know what he’s studying, so don’t ask … I never got the memo that I should quit too. I mostly play in house bands when they need me,and I teach some of my parents’ friends’ kids on the side.”

“You were a good teacher to me,” Micky commented, and Dean smiled at him with an almost vulnerable, searching kind of look in his eye. “Though I wasn’t that great of a student … But anyway, I never got the hint to get a real job either, obviously.”

“Hey, it’s something,” Dean shrugged, and Micky smiled. They clinked their drinks together.

“It sure is,” Micky sighed.

Dean was silent for a moment, so Micky kept talking.

“Do you ever think about just leaving it all?” Micky asked. “Not just quit, but skip town and start all over again, pretend none of the other stuff ever happened and get it right the second time around?”

Dean let out a laugh that sounded nervous, or at the very least unsure. “I can’t say I do.”

“Eh, I don’t all that often,” Micky lied. “It’s just a dumb fantasy, y’know? Not something I would actually do, but it crosses my mind now and again.”

He didn’t know what Dean thought about that admission, and he never found out. They changed the subject, kept chatting, catching up, laughing together about their misfortunes and misadventures. Micky had lost track of how many drinks they had ordered, though he hadn’t been making much of an effort to count in the first place. They just kept coming, without much memory of how they had gotten there.

Dean was coming down from a bout of laughter when he said, “I almost forgot to ask - how’s Nancy?”

Micky let out a loud and bitter “Ha,” before rolling his eyes. “Broke up with me last night.”

Dean snorted. “And how many times have you told me that?”

“I lost count after the 500th,” Micky said with a smirk. Dean took a swig from his drink. His expression suddenly became a whole lot more serious, though it was clear he was trying to force a joking manner.

“She never deserved you,” Dean told Micky, poking him in the knee. It was a stupid, teasing gesture, but still Micky had the bizarre thought that he wanted Dean to keep his hand there.

“C’mon, man,” Micky sighed.

“No, I’m serious,” Dean said with an incredulous chuckle that somehow made his words sound sincere all the same. “It wouldn’t be hard to find a girl who was actually  _ nice  _ to you. You were,  _ are _ , something else, Micky, and you deserve someone who actually likes you.”

“I never know what’s good for me,” Micky replied, not sure if he should continue laughing. He couldn’t keep pace with the turn the conversation had taken.

“Neither,” Dean laughed bitterly. He took another swig from his drink.

Micky’s memory was hazy. He didn’t remember how long it took for Dean to tell him, “Come home with me.” Maybe there had been looks in between all of that. More touching knees. Subtle hints. Micky had said yes before the more reasonable half of his brain could say no.

All at once, he was fumbling out of the taxi and Dean was unlocking the door.

Micky stepped into the house behind him, not sure what he was doing there, and what Dean expected him to do. He knew what ‘come home with me’ meant; he had heard it been said, and he had said it too many times not to know. But that couldn’t have been right, because Dean was Dean and Micky was Micky and  _ surely  _ it was just wishful thinking to believe that was what he had meant by it.

But then Dean was looking him in the eyes and Micky thought he heard him say his name quietly, and Micky was looking back at him, and then Dean was kissing him, oh god he was  _ kissing  _ him, and Micky  _ wanted  _ him to. And when they parted Micky felt so disappointed that it had ended that he leaned in and captured Dean’s mouth with his once more. He could feel Dean’s hands underneath his jaw, callused fingers leaving light touches yet still feeling strong all the same. And Micky was clawing and clutching at the front of his shirt.

It didn’t take long for Micky to find himself in Dean’s bed, while his clothes found their way to the floor. He was naked underneath another boy and it didn’t even feel that strange. It felt strange, how  _ not  _ strange it was. He had a boy’s mouth around his cock and it didn’t feel strange. And that, above all else, was terrifying.

Micky ignored the terror for the pleasure. Dean’s head was in between his thighs and he was doing  _ something  _ with his tongue that was driving Micky crazy. Micky’s hands tugged at his hair as he got closer and closer to that edge, but just as he was ready to jump off, Dean stopped.

He kissed Micky’s neck and cheek and jaw as Micky clutched the sides of his face. “Dean, please,” Micky whimpered. “I need more.”

“Don’t worry so much,” Dean hummed as he kissed Micky gently and stroked him slowly, once, twice.

“You can fuck me if you want, just …  _ please, _ ” Micky whined. Dean had been kissing Micky’s neck as he had said that, but Micky’s words made him stop, and he lifted his head to look at him.

“Babe, you don’t have to,” Dean said, and he was serious. His hair was hanging over Micky, tickling his face. Micky pulled him into a rough kiss, and wrapped a hand around his cock in return.

“Please, just …” Micky trailed off, unsure of what he was getting at. “You’re making me crazy, okay? So just fuck me already.”

Micky knew he was doing a lot of things he shouldn’t have, and that was number one on the list, written in big capital letters and underlined in red ink. These feelings were new, and he hadn’t had time to think over what it had meant to be attracted to Dean, and to be thinking about the things he did. But when had he ever been one to think things through before he dove in head first? It had been the same with his career, it had been the same with Nancy, and it would be the same tonight.

So he ignored the big list of things he shouldn’t be doing with the big number one being Don’t Fuck Other Men because, fuck the list, this was what he wanted in the moment, and he was going to get it, whether Micky in the morning liked it or not.

Morning Micky didn’t like it. It wasn’t like it had been  _ bad,  _ but that was exactly the part that Micky didn’t like. If it had been bad, and if he hadn’t enjoyed it, then he could have justified it - his girlfriend had just broken up with him, Dean had come onto him, he was feeling suggestable and decided to try it out once and then never again. That wasn’t queer. But waking up in the morning (where the implications of having a cock up your ass were plain and clear as day and couldn’t be ignored in favour of getting off) and still liking it? That was something else.

He hadn’t gone home after leaving Dean’s place. Instead, he walked all the way to Nancy’s house in his clothes from last night. He had knocked on her door early in the morning and gotten on his knees and begged and begged and begged. ‘Please, baby, I need you, I miss you, please take me back,’ and so on and so on. He supposed he had looked like complete shit, hungover and desperate and in need of a bath, because she took him in, and she only ever did that so soon after breaking up with him when she felt sorry for him.

He spent every night at Nancy’s place for the next week. But that didn’t mean that they were doing well.

Micky certainly wasn’t doing well at all. He still couldn’t sleep, and it seemed to be getting worse with each day that passed. He knew that he and Nancy didn’t love each other; he’d known that for months, and he had figured out how to deal with it a long time ago. But it felt all the more suffocating when he needed Nancy to hold him together, but he knew that she wouldn’t. He needed to be around her as some kind of justification, as some kind of defense against coming to terms with what he had done, and he felt like without her he might just crumble.

He knew that was a lot to put onto one person, and he felt guilty for making it Nancy’s responsibility. Micky had always been clingy, and Nancy had always hated it, and now Micky’s crisis was increasing those traits ten-fold and he could almost feel the strain he was putting them both under. Selfish, selfish, selfish, he had been so  _ selfish.  _ All id and no ego. 

Every gig he went to, he was scared that Dean would be in the band. And when he wasn’t in the band, Micky imagined every boy’s face in the crowd that he couldn’t see quite right was him. Every night (outside of those moments of fear impaling him) was a blur. He went to Nancy after every gig, and when they would fall together into her bed he had to focus on making sure his hands didn’t shake when he touched her.

It didn’t take long for her to be sick of him. He didn’t blame her. He was all over the place, trying too hard to make it work when it so clearly wasn’t. He was sleeping through most of the day, forgetting important things, stumbling around the house aimlessly at night.

When she did get rid of him, it was ugly. She had kicked him out, told him to go home and take a shower and not come back, and he had cried on the stairs of her porch. She kept yelling at him until he finally left, his feet dragging in shame, his tail held between his legs like a wounded puppy. He didn’t think his pride had ever taken a bigger hit.

Micky hadn’t gone home. He kept wandering around town. He found himself in a bar, with a drink in his hand.

**_  
_ ** **_  
_ **


	8. Shout

Micky didn’t know what to do about his crush on Mike. He didn’t know how to feel about it.

He could always go home, pretend like it had never happened, forget all about it. He could run away, just like he had with Dean, but he knew in his heart of hearts that he didn’t want to do that, no matter how much he told himself it was wrong. He was in too deep - too roped up and tangled in his own mess to get out.

He didn’t understand how he had let himself get this far. He had liked Dean, been attracted to him, but this was a different ballpark entirely. He had stopped himself before he started having any big feelings about Dean outside of sex. This thing with Mike - this was Capital L ‘Love’, or at least ‘Like’. This was butterflies in his stomach, this was carving their initials together on trees, this was sneaking glances and hoping Mike wouldn’t notice. And how could he just go home and forget all about that? The only way he could get away from it was if he somehow went back in time and avoided this whole mess, and that wasn’t happening any time soon.

And he found, outside of the constant berating he faced from his own hand, he didn’t hate his feelings towards Mike. It made him feel like he had felt when he was younger, when he had thought it was possible for someone to love him in the way he so desperately wanted to be loved. He had always liked having crushes. He liked the giddy, hopeful feeling they gave him, he liked how they made him want to wake up early in the morning just to see what would happen next. It didn’t feel any different with Mike, and why should it?

Micky thought about him most in the mornings. Mike was an early riser and by the time Micky woke up, he was already gone and starting to cook breakfast. He could still see the shape of Mike in the sheets and from where he had pushed away his half of the blanket, and if Micky closed his eyes, tucked the blanket close to his chin and focussed on the smell of breakfast wafting throughout the cottage he could imagine a life where Mike loved him back. It was a good life.

Micky thought about Mike at night too, when he woke in a panic, and he tried to keep quiet because Mike was still asleep beside him. He would pay attention to Mike’s breathing and how his hands were so close that he could reach out and hold them if he wanted to, and he would fall back asleep.

Micky had been thinking of Mike a lot more recently, not just because of this newfound infatuation that he just couldn’t quit, but because he was all too aware of the days counting down to his own birthday, and he wasn’t sure how to bring it up. Mike had never asked him when his birthday was, and with Micky’s crush came a self-consciousness that left him unsure on how to tell Mike that it was soon. It was silly, but then again, didn’t all crushes just feel so silly? Still, it felt like just telling him straight-forwardly was too desperate - the jig would be up, and Mike would realise that all Micky ever wanted was for him to look in his direction for a moment and never look away.

So Micky put off telling Mike until it was the day, and he  _ could _ have just pretended it was just any other day, and would have too, if the thought of acting like he wasn’t turning twenty didn’t make him so depressingly homesick.

Micky sat at the dining table, and decided to just be out with it.

“Mike,” Micky said, and Mike looked over his shoulder at him. “It’s my birthday.”

Mike set down the spatula and turned to face Micky properly, a surprised expression on his face. “No foolin’?” Mike asked. “Why didn’t ya tell me? I coulda gotten you a present.”

Micky scoffed. “I don’t want you to get me a present.” He didn’t say the second part that he wanted to get out - ‘you already do too much’ - but he got the feeling that Mike knew it was implied.

“Bullshit,” Mike shook his head. “I can’t get you somethin’ this late notice, but I’m not gonna do  _ nothin’  _ for your birthday.”

“You don’t have to,” Micky argued.

“What do you mean ‘I don’t have to’, of course I have to,” Mike retorted. “You’re my friend, I’m not just gonna let you be alone here on your birthday.”

Micky’s heart both shattered and squeezed itself back together, because, on one hand, he was just Mike’s friend, but on the other hand, he was Mike’s  _ friend _ and not just the weird stray kid that he had to look after.

“I’ll take the day off of work,” Mike continued. “Tell my boss that I’m sick. Me ‘n’ Peter’ve got a gig in town tonight, but we can invite Davy out and make a night of it, how about that?”

Micky wrung his hands nervously and nodded. “It’s really no bother?”

“Why the hell would it be a bother?” Mike asked, his face incredulous, one hand on his hip. “You deserve to have a good day, and it’ll be as much fun for me as it is for you.”

‘ _ You deserve to have a good day _ ’. Micky felt like he could cry. Instead he smiled at Mike.

They ate breakfast (Mike gave him an extra egg) and afterwards Micky got ready for the day. Half an hour later, he came out of the bathroom, towelling his hair, where he found Mike in the living room with his guitar on his lap.

“What did ya want to do today?” Mike asked, watching Micky as he sat down cross-legged on the floor next to the coffee table.

Micky tipped his head to the side, unsure of what he could say. He hadn’t thought that Mike would make such a big deal out of his birthday, and he didn’t know if he could think of anything he wanted on such short notice. 

“Can you play a song for me?” Micky asked. “I don’t mind what song you play.”

“I’m gonna play you plenty’a songs tonight, babe,” Mike said with a smile, but he started strumming anyway.

Micky found himself singing along. He hadn’t sung much since Mike took him in. He had hummed along to the radio, or to the songs in his head, but he had rarely sang them, and never when Mike was around. He supposed he just had never been in the mood for it, or it was just another part of him that he was trying to bury away and hide, even if he hadn’t been aware he was doing it. But it came naturally to him now. He was rusty and out of practice, but he kept singing anyway.

“You got a good voice, Micky,” Mike said. He sounded casual, but he was looking at Micky like he had never seen him before. Micky blushed involuntarily.

“I know,” Micky replied, leaning his elbow on the coffee table and resting his head in his hand. “Did I tell you I used to be a singer?”

Mike’s eyebrows shot up. “You didn’t.” He gave out a small, abrupt chuckle. “Here I was trying to impress you with my guitar and my songs when you’ve probably seen it all before.”

“You were trying to impress me?” Micky asked. Mike looked away. Micky shuffled closer, placing one hand on top of the other over Mike’s knee, and resting his chin on his hands. That got Mike to look down at him, but Micky didn’t meet his gaze and instead looked to the side as he spoke. “Anyway, I think you’re better’n me by a longshot. I could do the song and dance, but I never had much skill. You’ve got somethin’ I never did, like … ingenuity or ‘soul’ or whatever corny shit you wanna call it.”

“Still, I think you’re too hard on yourself,” Mike said, and Micky couldn’t see what his face looked like when he said it. 

They stayed like that for most of the morning, with Micky’s head on Mike’s knee as they spoke. It wasn’t the most exciting way to spend his birthday, but he didn’t mind. Micky got bored easily - he liked excitement and if he stayed in one place for too long he started wanting to climb the walls, but he never got that way with Mike. And he found that, after the river, he didn’t seem to have the stamina for it either.

Mike stayed with him most of the day, as he had promised. He had only left for town around midday, and he wouldn’t tell Micky what he was doing, even though it was obvious when he came home with grocery bags and not long after the smell of a cake baking was wafting through the cottage. Whenever Micky tried to enter the kitchen, though, Mike shooed him out and told him it was a surprise, so he had to wait in the living room, where he talked to Fish to pass the time. 

He still brought Micky the bowl of cake batter for him to lick, even though he insisted it was supposed to be a surprise. Micky couldn’t stop himself from laughing at Mike as he came into the living room, with flour on his pants and in his hair. 

They ate the cake for lunch. It felt like all Micky had to do was blink, and suddenly the afternoon had been spent and they were getting ready to leave.

Micky had picked out a nice outfit for the night, and though he hated feeling like he needed Mike’s approval, he still hoped that Mike thought he looked handsome anyways. 

When he met Mike at the door to leave, Mike looked him up and down, and smiled.

“Do I look okay?” Micky asked, patting down his curls and hating how self-consciously head-over-heels he had let himself get, and hating how it was too late to do anything about it.

Mike ruffled the hair that Micky had just patted down and said, “More’n okay.”

They met Peter and Davy at the venue - a little, out of the way bar with probably five other people in it in total. Mike and Peter ordered cokes for the four of them, but they had hardly gotten halfway through the bottle before the two of them had to leave to set up. 

That left just Micky and Davy at the table, but Micky didn’t mind much. He liked Davy - he was talkative and always found something to say that would pass the time.

Davy twirled his bottle of coke on the table. “How old are you turning, again?”

“Twenty,” Micky answered.

“We’re the same age, you know,” Davy pointed out. “Though I’m in December, the same day as Mike.”

“Now  _ that’s  _ a groovy coincidence,” Micky replied. 

He was trying to find some sort of joke in it that could make Davy laugh, or give him an affectionate punch to the arm more-like, but before he could, Davy rested his head in his hand and looked to the stage. Then he said, “Mike likes you a lot, you know? He doesn’t say it, but he thinks you’re a groovy kid, and he cares about you a lot.”

“I know,” Micky shrugged. “With everything he does to help me out, it’s hard not to know, you know?” Micky was far too aware of how much Mike cared for him, and yet he still wanted more.

“Do you like  _ him _ ?” Davy asked, and Micky wondered if this was some kind of interrogation on whether he was just using Mike for shelter and nothing else.

“Well, yeah, I think he’s a great guy,” Micky chuckled a little nervously at Davy questioning him. Davy looked away as he took a swig of his coke. “We’re friends.”

“That’s not what I’m getting at,” Davy said, shaking his head.

“Well what  _ are _ you getting at?” Micky asked, his nervousness increasing and creeping into his voice. He fidgeted with his own bottle, tearing at the label.

Davy let out a sigh, and leaned both elbows on the table. “Micky, don’t think I don’t see it. The things Mike says about you, the way you were looking at him just now, I’m not an idiot when it comes to these things. Mike might be a fool, but I’m not. Do you fancy him?”

Micky looked down at Davy. He would have preferred it much better if he was just questioning his loyalties. It didn’t feel right to be taller than Davy at that moment, when Micky felt two feet tall.

“I’m surprised you can see anything from down there,” Micky laughed, though the fear made his voice go up an octave. But there was that affectionate punch in the arm from Davy that he had been looking for earlier, which made it feel a little less like he was about to sling insults and proper punches at Micky for the way he felt about his friend.

“Be serious, Micky,” Davy scolded.

“Man, it’s embarrassing,” Micky complained, unable to be anything but light-hearted in the face of his fear. He steadied his hands on the coke bottle. “Don’t tell Mike.”

Davy nodded, and fiddled with his coke bottle for a moment. Then he said, “Mike’s gay, you know.”

“He-He is?” Micky stammered. “How do you know, did he tell you?”

“Are you serious?” Davy laughed. “It’s so obvious!”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Micky frowned with a pout, resting his head in his hand. Mike and Peter were on stage now, and Mike was talking to Peter and pointing to the stool where he had to sit. Peter moved the stool closer to the mic as Mike unravelled a lead. “What made you the expert on all of this stuff?”

Davy let out a barking laughter. “I mean this in the nicest way possible, Micky, but you’re clueless.”

Micky opened his mouth in offence, but he couldn’t defend himself because the show was starting, and Mike was speaking into the microphone.

“Hey y’all, thanks for, uh, comin’,” Mike said, and Peter nodded enthusiastically for encouragement. “Um, I’m Mike, and this is Peter and we’re gonna sing a few songs for y’all.”

Micky kept his eyes on Mike as he and Peter played. He had heard Mike sing and play guitar many times, but this felt special. This felt like, even though he was singing for everyone in the bar, it was all for him. Especially when Mike sought him out from across the room and gave him a lopsided smile, and Micky’s heart twisted itself into a knot.

_ Happy birthday to me. _


	9. Goin' Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I knew I should have taken off my shoes  
> It's front page news  
> Goin' down"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning for suicide attempt in this chapter

_ 1968. _

Micky was standing on a bridge, but it may as well have been a crossroads. He looked down at the water below. His stomach was churning.

He had spent the night in the bar, ordering drink after drink until he could hardly stand and the bartender had to lift him out of his seat and toss him into the street just to get him to leave. Micky had found his balance somehow, stumbled around town, he couldn’t really remember the specifics. He had ended up standing in the middle of the old stone bridge over the river, and he was thinking about everything and yet nothing at all. He was thinking about Nancy and Dean and his miserable, miserable life, but only in the fuzzy abstract. The kind of abstract that made it hard to reason with himself the closer he got to the edge.

In his inebriated state, he was thinking more and more about what it would be like to jump off. He was hardly thinking about dying, more just leaving it all behind. Let the water rush over him and take him where it would until everything turned black and then he wouldn’t have to think at all. Just like starting over. 

He was close enough to the ledge to lean over the side of the bridge. One wrong breath, one hiccup, and he would fall off.

Micky didn’t have much on his mind other than the mess he had made with his own life. Hung up on a girl who couldn’t stand him, hung up on a boy who made him paranoid, hung up on a job that left him empty and wrung out. Had he been crying earlier? His face was wet, but he couldn’t remember any tears coming out. Slowly, carefully, he stepped up onto the cobblestone guardrail of the bridge. His feet lay flat on the stone, but he felt so dizzy he was convinced he would fall at any moment.

He didn’t remember what he thought about beforehand. He wasn’t thinking about the water below, or drowning, or what the future held for him. He simply let go, stopped trying to keep balanced, leant his weight to one side and then he was going down, down, down.

Micky barely knew what was happening. It was an unusual feeling, free falling through the air. When he closed his eyes he felt like he was staying still, floating in the air. Then he hit the water with a splash that sounded lightyears away and he wasn’t ready for it and his mouth filled with the river. He was sinking deeper into the cold, and oh  _ god,  _ he didn’t know how to swim. It didn’t take long for his ribs to feel like they were collapsing in on themselves, stabbing into his lungs.

He was being pulled downstream by the current. He didn’t know where the river started and ended; whenever he opened his eyes it was a vast, muddy, blurry expanse and it hurt to look too long. He wondered if Nancy would be sad when they found his body in the morning. He wondered if his parents would be disappointed in him. He wondered if the people he had gone to school with would say they had seen it coming. His throat tightened. Despite the pain blooming from his chest and outwards, he thought that there was a kind of serenity in a watery grave. Completely weightless as he waited to hit the bottom, his hair floating in strands around his eyes and nothing ahead of him but blurriness. Like a separate reality entirely, where nobody knew him and nobody would be sad for him.

Just as he thought he couldn’t take it anymore, and he was about to well and truly drown, he felt cool air on the top of his head, and on instinct he lifted his head further up and found that he had floated to the surface. He felt disappointed. It was easy to accept his fate in the silent depths of the water, hearing and seeing nothing and having no hope to hold onto. But as he struggled to stay afloat and he coughed out dirty water and fought for breath, the reality of what he had done struck him, and fucking hell, he was going to  _ die _ out here. He hadn’t even left anyone a note or said goodbye and this was it, there was no going back now, he would be dead by morning. His teeth chattered in fright and from the icy cold that went straight to his bones. He could try to keep his head up all he wanted, but in the end the water would push him down all the same.

He was sinking again, and no matter how much he kicked and thrashed, it wasn’t any use. The emptiness of the river felt less inviting this time around. He realised now just how painful a slow death was going to be. He wished that he had drank more so he didn’t have to think so much. He wished that he had drank less so he could have avoided this whole mess. He wished he had just gone home and blown his brains out like everyone else so this could all be over with. 

Except he backtracked on that last thought. It was too final to think about really being dead, being gone with one pull of a trigger, unsure of what would be on the other side and not having enough time to wonder. He was beginning to realise he didn’t believe he was  _ actually  _ going to die; he couldn’t begin to picture what it would be like. He wondered what was worse, living his last moments in denial or just giving up. Neither would do him much good.

Micky felt so sick that he wondered if he would die of alcohol poisoning before the river could even get to him. As he resurfaced once again, he coughed at the wrong time and got a mouth full of dirty brown water.  _ Is this really what they drink in town?  _ This wasn’t going to be a glamorous death. He should have just gone to school instead of whatever he had done to get here. He should have learnt to swim.

He realised he had hardly eaten all day. He felt so hungry that he felt like he would pass out. There were a million things that could kill him, the cold being one of them. Hunger, fear and alcohol poisoning were further down on the list. 

He didn’t know how long he had been struggling for - it could have been hours, and it could have been mere minutes. He had gotten the hang of floating on his back above the water for longer and longer periods of time. When he wasn’t fighting for his life, it was impossible not to run through his litany of regrets. He should have just gone home. He should have broken things off permanently with Nancy a long time ago. He should have figured out how to not be afraid of his feelings for Dean. He should have, he should have, he should have. He wished that the waves would just take him under and suffocate him so he didn’t have to hear it anymore, but the suicidal tendencies had left him and he didn’t have the gall to take matters into his own hands. He just kept floating downstream.

It was dark all around him, and he couldn’t see where he was. What he could see didn’t look familiar. He had been lonely a lot more lately, but he had never felt it as much as he did then. He felt helpless and small, like a kid who had lost his mother at the supermarket. He whimpered to himself as tears ran down his face, but he couldn’t cry as much as he needed to because then he would lose focus and start sinking again. His crying echoed around him in the quiet night. That was another thing that could kill him - an animal or something coming out of the dark that he couldn’t see. Lord, he had gotten himself into a mess.  _ If only Nancy could see me now.  _ The thought was so bitter that he almost laughed out loud.

He kept looking down at his pruny, wrinkled fingers and wondering if that was what his last memory would be of.

He was still unsure of how long it had been, but he knew that it  _ had  _ to have been most of the night by then. He was getting tired and he felt too exhausted to keep himself above the water, and yet he persevered. Or he thought he was persevering, when in reality he was getting closer and closer to falling asleep until eventually he  _ had  _ passed out and was awoken by water encasing him once more.

His eyes snapped open and stung when he was met with the now familiar view of murkiness. He inhaled as an involuntary reaction, and water burned his nostrils. As he panicked, he felt his back hit a rock and pain seared through him. But the pain was only temporary, and he supposed by now he was in for a penny, in for a pound, and he ignored dull aching. Besides, what was more important was that all night, the river had been too deep to hit the bottom until that moment. And he figured, in his sleep-deprived, drunk and terrified brain, that that meant he was close to the shore.

He desperately tried to pull himself further along, though he still hadn’t got the hang of the whole ‘swimming’ thing, and he wasn’t going very far or very fast. But soon his feet weren’t just kicking through water, they were hitting solid ground and somewhere along the line he had lost a shoe, and his foot scratched on the rocks. He pushed himself off the bottom of the river and he was coming to the surface once more and he could  _ breathe,  _ and more importantly, he could  _ reach,  _ and he was  _ standing _ and by god he just might make it!

He pushed his hair from his face, and stood on his tip toes, holding his head up so he could breathe and Jesus, did it feel good not to have to fight to stay afloat anymore. He looked up and the sky was starting to lighten, though it was too foggy to see much else anyway.

He did his best to feel his way to shore, wading through the waves until he could crawl on his hands and knees and still be above water, and he pulled himself onto the banks with the remaining strength he had. 

His arms gave out just as he was out of the water, and he landed face first into the gravel. After all that, he just couldn’t do it anymore. 

Micky closed his eyes, and he felt his pain start to fade, and he wondered if he would open them to see another day, or if he was well and truly at the end of his journey, just as the struggle was over. But soon his worries were leaving fast and he was being carried away by his exhaustion.

There was no light at the end of the tunnel. Just the darkness behind his eyelids and the black of sleep and dreams he wouldn’t be able to remember.

But then he felt hands. And arms holding him. And he was moving. He stirred, and looked up to see the blurry face of a man looking down at him.


	10. Just A Song Before I Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Just a song before I go  
> To whom it may concern."

Micky woke up from the same old nightmare. The one that was half memory and half surreal make-believe, where he was in the water again, and he was being pulled down by a stranger’s hand. He could never see the stranger’s face clearly, but when they turned to look at him, it looked a lot like his own. He had learned to bite back his shouts whenever the nightmare came, until he awoke with nothing more than a gasp.

It was still night (or very early morning) when Micky woke up, and he was expecting Mike to still be asleep. But when he turned to his other side to check, instead he saw Mike sitting up, peering down at him with black eyes that were illuminated by the moon reflecting within them. Fish was curled in a ball, asleep, beside him, and he absentmindedly scratched between his ears.

Micky stared back silently for a moment.

“You okay?” Mike asked.

“Yeah,” Micky said quietly, though he looked down to escape Mike’s eyes. Mike knew better than to believe him by now. 

Mike reached down and pushed the hair from Micky’s face. “What do you dream about?”

“Exactly what you’d expect,” Micky answered. With a sigh he pulled himself closer, until his head was resting in Mike’s lap, and Micky was laying on his side, curled around himself and the other boy in the bed. Mike’s hand rested in his hair once again. Micky knew how easy it was to get caught up in everything about this - sharing a bed, cuddling close to one another, running hands through hair. If Micky didn’t know better, he could have easily convinced himself that Mike liked him just as much as he liked Mike. But this was affection born from charity, not from love. Mike had gotten into the habit of holding him close when he was sad, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder, patting his knee in encouragement, but that was just because he knew that Micky was lonely, and it would never have started if he didn’t get nightmares when he slept. No, he knew that Mike would never like him as much as he liked Mike, because nobody had ever liked Micky as much as he liked them, and he didn’t think they ever would.

“I’m sorry,” Mike said, even though it wasn’t his fault, not even in the slightest. Maybe he was just sorry he couldn’t do anything about it.

“I’ll get by,” Micky replied, doing his best to shrug, though Mike’s body was pressed against him. “Mike … Can I ask you something?”

“ ‘F course,” Mike answered. He was petting at Micky’s curls and his hand felt warm, and the weight was comforting.

“Why did you hide the newspapers?” Micky asked, tilting his head up to look at Mike, though he couldn’t see his face very well in the darkness.

Mike was silent for a while. “Well … I … I didn’t want you getting worried about people from your home lookin’ for you. You said you didn’t have anyone you wanted to go to, so I figured I didn’t want you t’feel guilty about stayin’ here if you saw they were looking for you.”

“Were they? Looking for me?” Micky asked, a sinking feeling in his gut.

“Yes,” came Mike’s reply, and the sinking feeling deepened. Micky fiddled with the fabric of Mike’s pants, bunched it up in his hands and let it go over and over again.

“Is that why you didn’t call the cops on me?” Micky questioned. He didn’t know what made him want to keep up this interrogation. “You thought I didn’t want to be found?”

“I know what it’s like, ‘s’all,” Mike said softly. “I … I left home when I was real young. My dad, he wasn’t a good guy, ya dig? So, I know what it’s like, to not wanna be found.”

“It’s not like that for me,” Micky admitted. “It wasn’t my family that made me do it. It wasn’t … it’s just complicated.”

“You can tell me,” Mike offered. “If you want.”

Micky stayed still, listening to Mike’s even breathing. A part of him didn’t want to tell Mike the whole story, due to the glaring shame he still felt over what he had done with Dean. But he remembered what Davy had told him the other week, about Mike being gay. The part of the story with Dean in it wouldn’t be the part he would be judged for.

“I was …” Micky began. “When I was eighteen I joined a band. Overthrew the lead singer, more like, but that’s not relevant. I was a singer in town, and I was pretty well liked too. I had this girlfriend, her name was Nancy, but it wasn’t … she wasn’t good for me. She was cruel and she didn’t love me and she left me every couple’a weeks, which is pretty pathetic for a man, isn’t it? -” Micky laughed self-consciously, but Mike showed no signs of judgement “- I did that for about two years, um, singing, I mean, even though my band left me, and it was really weighing me down, the late nights, and the same songs and the same crowds, and everything with Nancy. I wasn’t really looking after myself right, neither. Stupid reason to kill yourself, but …”

“It’s not stupid, Micky,” Mike said sympathetically, his eyebrows furrowed with worry. “If there’s more, you can tell me.”

“I … I don’t know, Mike,” Micky stuttered, mostly as a way to stall for time.

“It’s okay,” Mike soothed, and he placed a hand on Micky’s side, over his ribs, and slowly, gently, ran his hand back and forth, drawing invisible circles with his palm.

“A-A bit before I washed up here,” Micky continued, nerves rising in his throat like bile. He had never said it out loud, never spoken into existence his feelings for men after that night with Dean. Until then they had only lived in his head. “I ran into one of my old band members, the guitarist. Nancy had just broken up with me, and we had a couple of drinks and then we … I went home with him, and. Well.”

“I get what you mean, Mick.”  _ Thank god.  _ He really did  _ not  _ want to get into specifics.

“Yeah. I had never done that before, with a guy. When I woke up, I freaked out and went right back to Nancy, but it was worse this time around, I don’t know. I was so paranoid that he would tell everybody what had happened, or that he would confront me or I don’t know. I couldn’t sleep. Nancy finally kicked me to the curb and I just couldn’t take it, so I got drunk and when I got kicked out of the bar, I found my way to the river and I just … let go. Stood on the edge and let myself fall,” Micky finished explaining. He felt his eyes watering at recounting the story aloud, and he didn’t know why. “I didn’t really wanna die, I-I just wanted it all to go away. I was drunk and out of my mind and it was a stupid thing to do without thinking.”

He expected Mike to push him off and storm out of the room, too disgusted by Micky’s selfishness to bear to be near him. Instead he took Micky’s hand with his own.

“It’s okay, Mick,” he said. “Liking men, bein’ queer or whatever you wanna call it, it’s not … it’s not shameful, y’know? It’s not what everyone tells you it is, it’s just … a part of you, I s’pose. It’s human.”

“I know that, really, it’s just hard to explain,” Micky sighed. “If it were anyone else, I would’ve been fine with it, but when it’s  _ me _ … I was just scared.”

He thought that Mike nodded. “I’m from Texas. I know what that’s like.”

“My family,” Micky started, circling back around to the point he had been trying to make. “My family would want to know that I’m safe, at the very least, but I just couldn’t bring myself to go home. I don’t know if I’m ready to go back. I keep thinking that they’ll hate me for what I did - for making ‘em worry. It just feels like my life has been split into two parts, and going back should be impossible, but it isn’t. I could just walk away right now and go home. But the guilt just makes it harder to go, because every day I stay I just feel like they’re better off believing I’m dead.”

Micky started to properly cry at that admission, well and truly realising what an asshole he had been. Tears tracked silently down his cheeks, landing in pools on Mike’s pants. Mike had probably heard it in his voice, because he squeezed Micky’s hand.

“I can’t tell you what the right choice is, Mick,” Mike said. “No matter what choice you make, I’ll be here when you need me.”

Micky let out a proper, loud and hacking sob at those words and rolled onto his back, his head now resting back on the pillow. Mike wiped the tears from his cheeks and shifted to lay down beside him, causing Fish to wake up and jump off the bed. He pulled Micky into his arms, until his face was cradled in the crook of Mike’s shoulder, and all Micky wished for was that he could stop crying and getting snot and tears all over Mike’s shirt.

“You’re alright,” Mike whispered, a large, warm hand cradling the back of Micky’s head as he shook. “You’ll be alright.”

After a long time spent crying and wishing Mike would hold him under better circumstances, just because he felt like holding him, not because he felt obliged to, Micky fell asleep. When he awoke for the second time that morning, Mike was awake, but he hadn’t gotten up to shower and make breakfast like he usually did. He waited for Micky to open his eyes and pull away, and he made sure to say good morning and check that he was alright before he left their bed.

  
  



	11. Vienna

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "But you know that when the truth is told  
> That you can get what you want  
> Or you can just get old."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another not safe 4 work scene in this chap bc man. after everything ive put micky through my mans deserves to get laid. i know not everyone want to read it so this is yer warning

It was a few days after that night that Micky was laying in bed. It was raining outside, a heavy tapping on the window panes that almost drowned out the record that Micky was playing as he stared at the ceiling. He didn’t know what Mike was doing, or where he was in the house. He had come into the room to be alone.

He hadn’t been able to get that night off of his mind. Mike knew everything now - the good and the very, very bad. He wondered if what he had told Mike was what he had expected to hear, or if he was mistaken in what he thought had happened to Micky. He wondered if any of it changed how he felt about him. It had to. Not like it really mattered in the end - it wasn’t like it would make Mike suddenly love him.

Micky groaned and held his hands over his face. He kept thinking over what Davy had said about Mike, what he had been implying by saying it after Micky admitted his feelings for him. But that didn’t mean shit, and Micky wouldn’t let himself believe it did. Just because Mike liked boys didn’t mean Mike liked  _ him,  _ and he couldn’t take that risk. Because if he let himself believe there was a possibility, then he would do something impulsive, and then he wouldn’t have a place to stay anymore. He would have to hitchhike home - no more Mike, no more Peter, no more Davy, no more Fish, no more cozy little cottage. Just a stretch of highway and a stranger’s car and all of his ghosts that were waiting for him when the highway ended. 

And yet he couldn’t get himself to stop thinking about that night, no matter how loud the rain outside was, or how many records he listened to, or how hard he tried to think of anything,  _ anything,  _ else. He could have kissed Mike easily then. Pulled back from his shoulder, and then leaned back in. It would have been too easy. But it hadn’t felt right. Micky was too worried about Mike thinking he was gross for crying on his shirt, and it was dark and he worried that he wouldn’t find his lips and it would have been awkward. And, more than anything, he hadn’t wanted to do anything that would make Mike leave to sleep on the couch, because he didn’t think he could stand sleeping alone. 

He didn’t know how much more he could take. Everything Mike did pushed him closer to that ledge: simple things that added up like opening jars for him, and learning songs he liked on guitar, and making his favourite foods for dinner. He had never met anyone who did so much and expected so little in return. Just the other afternoon, Mike had driven past a market with pop up stalls selling all sorts of things on his way home from work. He had brought home a fringed jacket for himself and a colourful string of beads for Micky, all because they reminded Mike of him.

Micky was wearing the beads still, running them in between his fingers as he thought. They acted so much like they were already together it felt unbelievable that they weren’t. Maybe this was all just Mike pulling him along; maybe Mike was just the ultimate tease. But he was far too earnest for that.

At that moment, Mike came into the bedroom, his hair wet and hanging in his face, and his clothes soaked through. Had he been outside in the rain? Micky sat up.

“Just went for a walk, darlin’,” Mike said with a smile at Micky’s confused expression. Why had he been walking in the rain? That question only came to Micky later, however. The only thing that was on his mind at that moment was how Mike had called him ‘ _ darling’.  _

And there was that little beacon of hope that Micky tried so hard to avoid. He supposed, no matter how much he had denied it, the hope had been there all along. And that could only mean trouble.

He wasn’t sure why that was what had done it. He supposed it was like when he had jumped off the bridge: no trigger, no final thought or reason. Just impulse. When Mike turned to change into another shirt, Micky tugged his wrist and spun him around to face him.

“Mick?” Mike questioned, looking down at Micky’s hand, then at his terrified expression. “What’s wrong?”

“Mike, I …” Micky trailed off. How could he possibly put it into words? He grabbed fistfuls of Mike’s shirt in both hands and pulled him downwards. Mike didn’t pull away, but he didn’t kiss back either. When it became obvious that he wasn’t going to, Micky’s grip slackened, and he pulled away, looking into Mike’s expression for some kind of reassurance. He looked sad.

Mike sat down next to Micky on the bed, facing the wall in front of him with his legs hanging over the side and his hands held in front of him. He didn’t look at Micky. It felt like he had been silent forever, lips pressed into a thin line, before he said, “Micky, you don’t want someone like me.”

“Wha-What does that mean?” Micky asked. It wasn’t the kind of rejection he had been expecting.

“I’m …” Mike started. He pushed the wet hair from his face. “I can’t keep up … I’m awkward and weird and I live alone in a cottage near the woods with my cat for company. You deserve someone more interesting. Someone more flashy who’ll be able to take you somewhere better than here. You’ll go home and you’ll forget about me and you’ll find someone who’s good to you.”

Micky was taken aback for a moment. He turned his body so he was facing Mike, though Mike was still facing the wall across from the bed. “Mike, I’ve had flashy. I’ve  _ been  _ flashy. I don’t want someone with a fancy car who’ll buy me expensive things and take me to parties, or whatever you think that I want. I want  _ you.  _ You’re the best I’ve ever had and. A-and we’re not even together!”

Mike looked at Micky for a moment, a serious expression that furrowed his brows and pursed his lips. Micky knew that Mike was trying to see if he was lying. “Micky, I’ve been hung up on you for a while … an-and I don’t want you doin’ this because you feel like you owe me one or nothin’,” Mike mumbled. Micky’s mouth fell open, and he took Mike’s hands, though he tried to flinch away.

“Mike, you’re not making any sense,” Micky said quietly. “I didn’t even know. Please. All I want is you.”

“You don’t,” Mike argued, taking his hands back.

“Mike,” Micky pleaded.

“You don’t,” Mike repeated.

“Mike, please just kiss me,” Micky said quickly. Mike’s head turned. His eyes flicked up to meet Micky’s.

_ Fine. I’ll do it myself. _

Micky took both sides of Mike’s face in his hands and pulled himself in. This kiss was chaste, gentle pressing of lips against lips, unlike the clumsy crashing that had been the first kiss. It was a question that was asking a million things at once.

Eventually, with a sigh that sounded almost relieved, like he had been holding his breath and was finally able to breathe fresh, clean air, Mike ran a hand through Micky’s hair and kissed him back.

There was something so lonely about pulling away from a kiss that always made Micky want to go back for more and more and more, and this was no exception. In an instant, he had gotten so used to having Mike’s lips against his that it felt wrong when they weren’t there anymore.

“Micky, I …” Mike began, though what he was going to say fizzled out. Their noses were so close they were touching. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t gotta say anything,” Micky whispered, reaching for Mike’s belt buckle even though the action made him so nervous he could die, because that was how these things went, weren’t they? “I just really like you, Mike.”

Mike laid a hand over Micky’s as it fiddled with the buckle, the metal clinks echoing throughout the room. The rain had lightened up and the record had stopped playing.

“You don’t gotta go that fast, baby,” Mike said softly, and Micky almost melted.  _ Baby.  _

“Do you want me to?” Micky asked.

“I want you to do what you want,” Mike answered. He held Micky’s face in his hands. “I don’t want you diving in for my sake. If you want more time to think, I’ll be okay.”

“Nobody’s told me that before,” Micky said, shaking his head and smiling. He was used to feeling like he always had to please just for people to like him. He was used to feeling like he had to give everything he had to make up for what he lacked. “Well, they’ve never said it and gotten through to me.”

Micky kissed him again, and Mike turned them over so Micky was laying against the pillows with his hair splayed in soft curls around him. Mike kissed all over his face - his cheeks, his jaw, his neck, the tip of his nose - but he always came back to his lips eventually.

“You’re beautiful,” Mike whispered, with one hand on Micky’s waist and the other keeping him upright above Micky. “I always thought you were pretty, from the moment I met you.”

“The moment you met me, I probably looked like a drowned rat,” Micky giggled. He pulled Mike to lie on his side and kissed him again and again and again.

By the time Mike was underneath him, and Micky was pulling at the hem of his shirt to tug it over his head, Micky was feeling more self-assured. Like this was a journey he was ready to take, and not one he would go on just to make sure Mike wanted him. He returned to the belt buckle, and this time Mike didn’t stop him. And Mike was undressing him in return, until they lay on the bed, bare skin touching bare skin. 

Micky kissed his way downward, as he had done with many girls before. But Mike was certainly no girl.

“I’ve never done this before,” Micky almost whispered, looking up at Mike with wide eyes.

Mike ran his hands through Micky’s hair. “If you don’t want to …”

“I want to,” Micky said with a small smile, and wrapped his hand around the base of Mike’s cock, causing him to let out a soft moan. “I’m just warnin’ ya in case it’s bad.”

Mike’s hand moved to cup the side of Micky’s face, his thumb running over his cheek. “I trust you.”

Everything Mike did seemed to leave Micky melting. He blushed at Mike’s words - he had never gotten embarrassed when he was this far into it. And then he was wrapping his lips around the head. And then he was running his hands over Mike’s bony hips. And then Mike was gasping quietly and cursing under his breath and Micky figured that meant he was doing alright. And then, and then, and then.

Mike warned him when he was about to come, but Micky decided he would stick it out to the end - though he almost regretted the decision when he found that he wanted to see what Mike looked like. Oh well. There was time for that later. When Micky came up for air, Mike pulled him into a rough and hungry kiss, and Micky couldn’t help but smile against his lips.

The smile was still there as he asked, “I do alright?”

Mike smiled back dopily, and stroked Micky’s cock with a hand that was still shaking. “More’n alright, baby.” Micky bit back a moan.

“If you keep calling me baby this is gonna be over a _ lot _ sooner than I was hopin’ for,” Micky chuckled, light and airy, though he didn’t want Mike to stop, not one bit.

“What do I call you then?” Mike asked, laying soft kisses on Micky’s neck. “Honey?” A kiss to Micky’s jaw. “Puppy?” A kiss to his cheek. “Darlin’?” A soft, lingering kiss on his lips.

“Oh god,” Micky half-sighed, half-moaned, and he had to kiss him again to distract himself from Mike’s hand that was now moving faster. His hands were buried deep in Mike’s hair, where they stayed, probably gripping a little too hard when he eventually came, though Mike didn’t complain.

They lay on their sides, facing each other in the afterglow. Mike was smiling shyly, and Micky supposed he was the same. He leaned in to kiss Mike once more - a kiss that was searching and almost innocently romantic, a peck that ended just as quickly as it came. Mike’s grin widened and he pulled Micky into his arms.

And  _ there _ was the embrace that Micky had wanted for weeks now. Mike holding him  _ just because  _ -no real reason other than that he wanted to.

“G’night, Micky.”

“Goodnight, Mike.”


	12. Four Days Gone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “And my baby’s a-waitin’, I hope, sir  
> After fifteen trucks and an old Ford.”

_1962._

Mike was sixteen, turning seventeen in December, but that wasn’t for months. He was in a stranger’s truck - a man with a thick accent, a grey beard, large hands with dirt underneath the fingernails and deep, grimy wrinkles in his face. Mike was too scared to look at him for too long. He kept his eyes out the window, his hands clutching the strap of the duffle bag that was at his feet and the neck of his guitar that was packed safely in it’s soft case.

“Where’r’ya goin’, boy?” The man asked in his deep, gravelly voice. He sounded like he had been smoking all his life.

“Wh- Huh?” Mike startled. He hadn’t been paying attention, too focussed on the fear and the nerves that were eating him up from the inside out.

“I _said_ where’r’ya goin’, boy?” The man asked again. “Where’r’ya headed?”

Mike had never figured out how to be a good liar. He couldn’t even think of an answer he could give - not a single place that he could go. He felt like he could cry. “I-I don’t know.”

The man sighed deeply and Mike chanced a look at his expression. He thought he saw sympathy, though that might have just been because of the wrinkles that time had carved into his face making him look permanently worried.

“I can take ya as far as Stamford,” the man sighed. “After that you’re on your own.”

“Stamford’s good,” Mike said, his voice coming out squeaky and meek. 

They had started their journey a little way outside of Houston, and Mike had snuck out of his house in the early hours of the morning, but even then it would take most of the day to get there. He had a long road ahead of him.

The radio in the truck was playing a Bobby Darin song softly. _“Oh, the greatest thing … you’ll ever learn … is just to love and be loved in return.”_ Mike almost had to laugh. He wasn’t feeling very loved. He hadn’t felt much love his whole life.

Mike didn’t speak unless spoken to, and stuck to keeping his eyes out the window, at the passing trees and fields and the occasional gas station or inn. Billboards selling all sorts of things - Coca-Cola, ice cream, tobacco - once brightly coloured, now faded and peeling from years in the sun. Every now and then he would see a lone house in a field and though there were rusted pick-up trucks in the front yard, and bicycles lying in the dirt, he couldn’t imagine anyone actually living there. There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky, and everything seemed vast and lonely - a big, wide world, much too big for Mike, who felt nothing but small. How could he find a place for himself when he had nothing anchoring him down? When everything he passed seemed so empty? He could go anywhere, and the reality of what that meant rattled him.

Mike would have gone the whole journey not saying a single word, except that the man kept asking him questions. 

“What’s your name, kid?” he asked in that gruff voice.

“Mike,” was all he gave in reply.

“Frank,” the man introduced himself. “What’s the gee-tar for?”

Mike wasn’t sure how to reply. It wasn’t _for_ anything. “I don’t know. It belongs to me, so I took it with me.”

“So, you ain’t runnin’ off ‘cause you’re fixin’ to be a singer or nothin’?” Frank continued.

“I don’t know,” Mike answered. He didn’t have any plans when he left home that morning - just take what money he had and whatever he could carry and run. He would figure out the rest from there.

“You don’t know a lot, do you, boy?” Frank asked, though Mike assumed it had been rhetorical. And besides, he wouldn’t have known how to answer even if it hadn’t.

Further in the journey, as the sun climbed into late morning, they pulled into a gas station with a diner attached. Mike hopped out of the truck and followed Frank, unsure of if it was what he wanted him to do or not. He kept his guitar on his back and his bag over his shoulder.

He could hardly believe his luck when Frank bought him a sandwich and told him to sit in the booth. Mike hadn’t eaten anything all day, and he almost made himself sick with how fast he swallowed it down.

Frank was sitting across from him, but still Mike avoided looking him in the eyes, instead looking determinately at the table, and his plate in front of him.

“How old are you, kid?” Frank asked him.

“Sixteen.”

“What are ya doin’ goin’ to Stamford?” He interrogated further.

“Um,” Mike stalled, fighting back the urge to say ‘I don’t know’ again. “I just - I couldn’t stay where I was.”

Frank didn’t press him for more. He could probably tell everything about Mike just from looking at him - a kid in dirty jeans with bruises on his arms and his face. It wasn’t hard to put the pieces together.

“I’m only stoppin’ there,” Frank explained. “I gotta drop off some cargo, then I’m headin’ east to Dallas. -” he picked food out of his teeth “- Got my wife waitin’ for me at home there.”

Mike didn’t know why Frank was telling him about Dallas or his wife and his home - either to gain Mike’s trust, or to offer him a place to stay.

Frank was still picking his teeth when he asked, “I don’t s’pose ya wanted to hitch a ride to Dallas?”

Mike thought it over for a moment, eyeing Frank warily. It wasn’t like he had anywhere else to go, and perhaps Frank _was_ offering him a place to stay. But weighing up the options, it didn’t sound like the wisest decision. He hardly knew this man after all, and though he was desperate enough, he wasn’t stupid enough to stay with him for any longer than he had to. And Dallas was a little too close to home than he was comfortable with. Anywhere in Texas would have been too close to home for comfort.

“Naw,” Mike decided. “I think I’m gonna head further out west.”

“You thought about California?” Frank asked.

“California?” Mike echoed. “What’s in California?”

Frank shrugged. “I hear that’s where it’s happenin’ these days. For a kid like you, might be a nice change of scenery, if you’re lookin’ for a far cry from Texas. I’d say New York’s the place for guitar players and singers, but that’s on the other side of the country, and you’re too young t’be bummin’ rides for that long.”

Mike nodded, mulling over Frank’s words. California. It would be warmer there than New York, at least.

It was around midday by the time they got to Stamford. Frank had stopped in front of a shabby looking motel and gotten out of the truck, and Mike followed him out on instinct. His legs felt stiff and awkward after sitting for so long, and he felt weary from travel, though he supposed he would get used to it.

“You sure you don’t wanna go to Dallas?” Frank asked once more. Mike shook his head.

“I’m sure,” he said.

Frank nodded and felt in his back pocket, bringing out his wallet and flicking through it for a twenty dollar bill that he handed to Mike. “Use this at the motel,” he explained, nodding in the building’s direction. “There’ll be enough left over for a train ticket or a bus or something, so you don’t gotta hitch rides from strangers. And for the love’a God, don’t spend it on drugs or nothin’, or I’ll be real pissed.”

Mike took the bill and blinked at him, confused both by Frank’s kindness, and by how he thought he would be able to know if Mike used the money for drugs. “Thanks, sir. For everything.”

Mike saw Frank smile for the first time, yellowy and crooked teeth peeking out from his beard. “Stay outta trouble, kid.”

That was the last Mike ever saw of Frank. They would never meet again, hadn’t even spent twenty-four hours together, yet he wasn’t someone Mike thought he could ever forget. It seemed wrong, thar he would never be able to show his gratitude in a tangible way other than a simple thank you.

He had gotten a room at the motel for cheap and stayed in it for the rest of the day. He had made the decision to run away the night before, and hadn’t been able to sleep instead stuffing all the things he thought he would need in a bag, hoping his parents didn’t hear him, and waiting, cross legged, for the right time to leave. He had snuck out the window the minute he saw the sun on the horizon, and when he was far enough away from the house and out of town, he had walked along the road with his thumb out. 

Now, in the motel room, the second he set his bag and guitar down, he curled himself up on the double bed that felt so much bigger than the bed he had at home and worried and worried and worried that his dad would catch up with him and worried and worried and worried that his mother would be missing him until he fell asleep early.

Mike woke up that morning hungry. He hadn’t eaten anything the rest of the day besides the sandwich Frank had bought for him. Despite this, he skipped breakfast, too afraid of spending all of the money he had at once. He had more money than just what Frank had given him, but still he was terrified of what would happen when he ran out.

Mike walked around town, looking for a train station, and when he couldn’t find it, he stole a map from a gas station. Eventually, he made it, and his feet were sore and his legs aching from walking. When he got to the station, he bought a ticket for the first destination that seemed somewhat westward, though Mike was no expert on geography. The man on the train checking his ticket seemed surprised that he was there legitimately and hadn’t snuck on board.

For a while, Mike spent his time taking trains or buses or hitching rides to towns he had never been to, until at times he hardly even knew what state he was in anymore.

In the end he did run out of money before he got to California. He was staying in a motel and trying to lay low, but when the owner found out he couldn’t pay, he was kicked out onto the street. Without any money, he slept outside, with his hands clutching his guitar as if that would do him any good against thieves. It was a miracle it had never been stolen. He needed a job, but nobody wanted to give one to a long-haired, skinny teenager on the street. He busked instead, making just enough cash for food if he was lucky. He tried not to cry at night.

It was as he was busking that a man approached him, probably in his early to mid thirties. He left some cash in Mike’s guitar case and asked him where he was from. He came back every day after that.

After a while of giving Mike spare change and talking to him if he had the time, the man asked if he was looking for a job. Mike said yes.

It was a gig at a workshop, fixing up cars and such, though Mike didn’t touch the cars himself. He stayed in the background with his broom, cleaning around the shop and helping out the mechanics when they ordered him around. It was decent pay for what it was, until he could afford to stay in motels and sleep in a real bed again. When he had been working there longer, and had proved himself to be trustworthy, his boss - the man who had offered him the job in the first place - let him sleep on the couch in the office at night to save money.

Mike had been squirreling away his money for a real place to stay. It was his boss who told him about the cottage outside of town. His friend was trying to rent out or sell, and he was getting desperate. It was cheap, because it was out of the way, and wasn’t in good shape, and because it was so difficult to sell, the owner hadn’t asked many questions as long as Mike paid him. There had been some lying to real estate agents about Mike’s age involved in the whole process.

The men at the workshop helped him get on his feet, gave him a mattress and blankets and linen and home cooked meals in containers to get him started. He slept on the mattress with no bed frame and shivered underneath the thin blanket in winter. But soon the house began to fill itself with more and more furniture until he was the most comfortable he had felt in months - maybe even years if he thought long and hard about it.

_1965._

After almost three years of living in the cottage, Mike had given up on his vision of going to California.

Over the years working in the repair shop, he had been taught by some of the other guys how to work on the cars and fix them up, until he was something of an apprentice there. He had bought a bicycle for himself to get to work every day, until one day his boss showed him an old, run down car that had been brought in, mostly for scrap parts, and he said that Mike could keep it if he could get it running.

And he _had_ gotten it going. When he took it for a test run around town and came back in one piece the boys at the shop cheered for him and clapped him on the back. It was the proudest he had ever felt about himself; he had been working as a mechanic ever since.

Looking back on his time spent rambling across state lines and towns he spent less than a day in, and sleeping in sketchy motels or tucked away in alleyways or underneath bridges, he was all too aware just how lucky he had been to make it out relatively unharmed. It was a miracle he had made it out alive at all. Still, even though he had a house and a car and a job, and he wasn’t in danger every minute he spent awake (and especially every minute he spent asleep), he found he was still lonely. He thought a lot about his mother. She hadn’t done anything that had made him leave, besides being unable to do anything to get in the way of his dad and him. And he _had_ felt resentment over it for a long time, but the older he got, and the longer he spent on his own, the more he worried that he had betrayed her. Her oldest son had left her in that house with that man and nobody else to look out for his younger siblings.

But he was still too afraid to go back, and that was the loneliest feeling in the world. It was when he was mulling over this loneliness that he realised his world mostly consisted of the cottage, the workshop and the little grocery store he bought his food from. So he figured, even if he couldn’t go back to Texas, changing that was at least a first step in making some kind of change towards a less solitary life. So he got his guitar and he started going out, keeping an eye out for open mic nights, and places looking to hire musicians.

It was at an open mic night at some restaurant in town that he met Peter and Davy.

Peter had been playing there as well with his banjo before Mike, and he had invited Davy to watch. Mike had seen him play, but hadn’t been paying much attention to him because he still got so nervous when he played live that he was too distracted by fighting with his instinct to give up and go home before he embarrassed himself.

But Peter had been paying attention to him. Mike was packing up his guitar in its same beat up case when Peter approached him, Davy trailing behind. 

“Hi!” Peter greeted him, a grin on his face that dimpled his cheeks. He held out his hand. “I’m Peter.”

“Mike.” Mike took his hand, and Peter shook it quickly and a little too enthusiastically.

“This is Davy,” Peter said, gesturing to the short boy behind him.

“Hey, mate,” Davy waved politely, stepping to stand beside Peter.

“I liked your set,” Peter complimented him, still smiling. Mike flushed. Peter seemed like an alright guy, but talking to strangers wasn’t Mike’s forte and all of him just wanted to escape to go home. “I like your, um …” Peter pointed to the harmonica holder around Mike’s neck. 

“Oh!” Mike took the holder off and handed it to Peter for him to look at. “Yeah, thanks. It’s pretty handy.”

“Where can you get things like them?” Peter asked, handing it back to Mike. Mike scratched the back of his head.

“Well, um,” Mike stuttered. “Probably at the music shop in town, but I, uh, I made that one myself.”

“Oh!” Peter exclaimed. “That’s so groovy! Don’t you think that’s groovy, Davy?”

Davy had been standing quietly next to Peter with his arms crossed, waiting for them to be done. When Peter acknowledged him, he smiled brightly and nodded. “Yeah, that’s pretty cool, Pete.”

“That’s outta sight,” Peter continued. Mike was about to thank him again, when Davy tugged on Peter’s elbow and gave him a look that seemed to communicate _something_ in between them. Peter turned back to him. “Well, we gotta go, but I hope to see you around, man!”

“Nice to meet y’all,” Mike said, and Davy smiled at him and gave him another wave.

Mike did see them again at other open mics and the like, and Peter always made sure to catch him before he left. After so many weeks of this, Peter invited Mike to his apartment where they could hang out and play music together. Davy was there, too, which confused Mike before he learned that they were roommates. But, as he would figure out soon enough, Davy and Peter were also just generally attached at the hip.

The more time he spent at Peter and Davy’s place in the afternoons, the more it was simply a natural progression to combine their solo acts into a duo. It was a little bit after that point where Mike realised that he now had people to call his friends.

_1966._

Mike was twenty when he saw his mother again. It had been four years since he had run away, and he had managed to land on his feet alright without hearing a word from his family.

He had worried he would be found for weeks when he was on the street, even though he was far enough away from his home town that nobody knew him, or where he had come from. Then, once he had settled down in the cottage, he was sure that his father would somehow learn where he was and he hadn’t been able to sleep for far too long, because every bump in the night set him off.

But over time, and as he got older, the paranoia eventually lessened until he hardly felt it anymore, and it only showed its face every now and then when he saw someone with a similar haircut to his father in the grocery store, or a customer at work who dressed the same as he had, or had the same kind of nose.

So Mike was less afraid of being found, and the memories of the past all felt more like a bad dream, or a film he had seen, than something that had actually happened to him. And yet he still felt the guilt. But he also felt safe enough to finally do something about it.

He still remembered his phone number, even after all this time. Maybe that was something that would never leave him.

He didn’t have much of a plan for what he would say when whoever was on the other end picked up - all he knew was that if it was his dad he would hang up immediately. Maybe even take the phone off the hook and move across the country, maybe actually make it to California this time - though he trusted himself enough to not have to believe he would go that far. 

He dialed the number and waited. With each ring in his ear he felt more and more doubtful, and he was about to slam the phone down (maybe throw it out the window while he was at it) when the person on the other end picked up, and there was a voice coming through the line.

“Hello?” Mike’s mother asked, and her voice hadn’t changed in all these years.

“Mama?” Mike asked, his voice shaking, and he was surprised to find he hadn’t stumbled on the word.

He heard a gasp on the other end. “Michael?” His mom sounded close to tears. “Mike is that you?”

“Yeah, ma it’s me,” Mike half chuckled, half sobbed dryly. He gripped the phone with all the strength he had. “It’s Mike.”

He learned that his dad had ditched the family about a year after Mike had. He made plans to leave for Texas that weekend.

The entire drive he worried that his family wouldn’t recognise him. His hair had grown longer, then been cut short, then grown longer again. He couldn’t remember what he had looked like when he was sixteen, and he had no photographs to refer to, but he _felt_ like he looked older - more lines on his face, more stubble on his jaw, newer scars he hadn’t had before. But when he finally pulled up in front of the old house, and his mom was rushing out the door to catch him in a tight hug, he realised how stupid he had been. When he looked in his mother’s face, he saw his own reflected in it - the same pointed nose, the same chin, the same brown eyes, the same black hair. He had always been told that he looked more like his mother than his father, but he had never paid attention to the similarities until that moment. She had probably looked in the mirror and seen her lost son every day for the past four years.

He had stayed with his family for a few days in his old room in his old bed that had hardly changed in all the years he had been gone. His siblings spoke to him as if he was a stranger, and he didn’t blame him for it. The eldest of his siblings had been thirteen when he had left, the youngest hardly remembered him by the time he came back.

He couldn’t stay forever. He had a life to go back to, a life he had created through his own blood, sweat and tears, that he had fought so hard to make for himself, and he didn’t want to leave all of it behind. So he gave his ma some money to help her out, said his goodbyes and told her she could visit at any time. She had cried as he pulled out of the driveway, though she tried to hide it.

After a long journey home, his heart heavy, Davy and Peter visited him and brought a big meal for the three of them to eat together to make Mike feel better.

_1967._

Mike was setting a bowl of cat food out on the back porch and trying to coax the kitten out of the bushes. Mike had spotted the cat hanging around, running out of sight whenever he went in the yard, and he had been leaving food out for it ever since. But as winter continued, he felt increasingly worse about leaving it out in the cold.

“Bit of a stubborn bastard, isn’t he?” Davy’s voice cut through the silence, and the cat scattered and ran away. Mike rolled his eyes.

“Davy, would you _please_ shut up for two seconds,” Mike huffed. He wasn’t facing Davy, but Mike knew that he had probably rolled his eyes in response. He must have opened his mouth to say something in response, because Peter shushed him.

He found the cat further down into the backyard and crouched near it once again, holding out the bowl of food to try to persuade it to come out. He was luckier this time, probably from being further away from Davy and Peter, and the cat approached the bowl slowly. 

Before it could run away again, Mike scooped it up. Peter was still on the porch, while Davy had followed him to get a closer look at the action, so Mike handed the bowl of food to him. The cat was only a tiny thing - still a kitten and Mike could almost hold it with one hand. Despite this, it had a fierce disposition, and managed to claw and scratch its way out of Mike’s grasp. It fell to the ground, landed on its feet and sprinted through the open back door into the house.

From the porch, Peter stared dumbly at the back door, then looked back to Mike and Davy and smiled. “Guess that was a success.”

“Close the door, Peter, before it escapes!” Mike called. Peter’s mouth opened in an ‘oh!’ before he turned and pulled the door shut. Mike clapped him on the back when he and Davy made it back to the porch. “Thanks, buddy.” Peter smiled proudly at the role he had played in helping out.

Inside the house, Mike cleaned the blood from his hand in the kitchen, while Davy lounged cross-legged on the couch. Peter was on the floor, trying to get the kitten to come out from underneath it.

“What’re ya gonna name him?” Davy asked from the living room.

“I don’t know,” Mike said, breathing out a laugh. “I hadn’t thought about it.”

“I think he should be called Fish,” Peter said from the floor, halfway underneath the couch. Mike wasn’t sure if Peter had said it because he thought it would be funny or because he genuinely thought Fish was a good name for a cat. It was always hard to tell with Peter.

“We can’t call a cat Fish,” Mike huffed, sitting in the living room with the rest of them.

“I think Fish is a lovely name for him,” Davy argued, and Mike fixed him with a glare.

“Don’t encourage him,” Mike scolded.

At that moment, Peter resurfaced with the cat in his arms, purring happily. “I think he likes it,” he said with a dimpled grin.

_1968._

Mike’s eyes snapped awake as he heard the back door shut loudly. He groaned and wiped at his eyes. He had forgotten to lock the back door last night, and Fish had probably taken that as an opportunity to claw at the fly screen until he was able to pull it open and escape.

He dressed clumsily from sleepiness and stumbled into the living room, where his suspicions were proven correct as he heard the bell from the cat’s collar outside. He sighed and wiped at his bleary eyes once again.

Mike pulled his coat closer around him as he opened the back door and felt the wind whip at his face, cold and harsh and cutting into his cheeks. Another bleary Monday morning, damp and foggy and miserable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mikey backstory time ,,, usual beating mike up time


	13. I'm On Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "At night I wake up with the sheets soakin' wet  
> And a freight train runnin' through the middle of my head."

When Micky awoke, Mike had rolled over onto his back, but Micky’s arm was still laying limply over his torso. Mike was already awake, as he always was.

Micky sighed sleepily and pulled himself closer, resting his head on Mike’s chest. Mike’s hand immediately started petting at his hair, and he hummed quietly. Micky felt content for the first time in a while. This was all he wanted - to be held so carefully in the early hours of morning, the sun shining down on him and Mike, and the cream coloured sheets of the bed with all of their wrinkles and folds from the night before.

“Mornin’,” Mike said, his voice gravelly and deep from sleep. 

Micky smiled and raised himself up to look at Mike. He stole a kiss, greedy and quick and sheepish in the way he did it. “G’morning.”

Mike smiled lazily up at Micky before he slung an arm around his neck and pulled him back down to the bed, rolling the both of them onto their sides. Micky let out a surprised giggle as Mike nuzzled into his neck, and wrapped a leg around his own.

“Y’know, I’ve gotten used to waking up to breakfast,” Micky teased, tapping his fingers along Mike’s back.

“Is that the only reason you like me?” Mike asked from Micky’s neck, biting playfully after Micky’s comment. “Because I cook for you?”

“Well, it’s certainly a bonus,” Micky shrugged. 

Mike pulled back and kissed him on the forehead. “You want your eggs poached or scrambled?”

“Scrambled, please,” Micky replied with a wide grin.

Mike separated himself from Micky to stand and get dressed, while Micky enjoyed the view from the bed. He had seen Mike plenty of times, but the new context (and the lack of clothes) made it feel like Micky was laying eyes on him for the first time all over again. Micky shamelessly put on his glasses to better see the boy in front of him - his long and slender legs, the hickey on his lower neck that had been entirely Micky’s fault, the trail of hair on his stomach starting at his bellybutton.

Mike turned from the dresser and noticed Micky staring. He smiled bashfully with a light blush. “You’re scarin’ me, lookin’ at me like that.”

“Why?” Micky asked, cocking his head to the side.

“Not much to look at ‘s’all,'' Mike shrugged. “It’s just all …” Mike pulled a t-shirt over his head “... Skin and bones and knobby knees and pointy elbows, man …” He stepped into his trousers and reached for his wool hat “... It’s not the most breath-taking sight in the world.”

“I think it is,” Micky disagreed, and when Mike fixed him with a quizzical look, he replied with an earnest one. “I think you’re the prettiest sight I’ve ever seen.” It was such a cheesy thing to say that, had it been anyone but Micky, Mike would have thought he was laying it on a little thick.

Mike blushed a deeper shade of pink. "I'm gonna make breakfast," he said, before leaving for the kitchen.

By the time Micky had stretched and gotten up and dressed, Mike had started cooking, the smell travelling throughout the cottage. Fish followed Micky’s heels, and once in the kitchen, he tried to jump on the bench where Mike was working. Micky, however, picked him up and held him in his arms before he got the chance to. Fish yowled sadly at his plans being foiled.

With the cat in his arms, Micky planted a kiss on Mike’s cheek and turned to lean his back against the counter. He smiled a little to himself. He had gotten his perfect little life where Mike loved him back.

It made it difficult to think about going back when Mike’s cottage was beginning to feel more and more like home to him, more so than his own big and lonely and empty house ever had. It wasn’t like it slipped his mind; he thought about it constantly. But along with those thoughts always came a stubborn unwillingness to give up all the good that had come from leaving. There were many more mornings just like that first one, waking up entwined in the warmth of the sun, neither of them wanting to have to leave the bed to start the day. There were nights where, when Micky woke up startled, Mike would kiss the back of his neck and pull him closer. There were afternoons when Mike would come home to find Micky sitting cross-legged in the garden, enjoying the warmer weather of spring, and he would bend down to kiss the top of his head and sit beside him, asking how his day was. It all made it harder.

Mike had been shy at first. Shy when he caught himself looking at Micky too long, shy when he was undressing him, shy when he was touching him. He was always asking, always checking, if Micky was alright with it, as if he couldn’t quite believe that Micky really did like him, well and truly. And Micky didn’t mind him asking. He loved Mike’s gentleness, his concern, the quiet kindness that made his knees weak at every turn. But he also enjoyed when Mike became a little more confident - a little more self-assured - until he didn’t feel the need to ask so many questions because he already knew the answers.

They didn’t even need to tell Davy and Peter about their relationship, Davy knew from just one look at the both of them when they opened the front door to greet him and Pete together. “You two fucked, didn’t you?” Davy accused with his arms crossed, squinting at them as if it would help him discern any details about the two of them that would prove his point. Mike had turned bright red and told him off for being crude, which apparently told Davy everything he needed to know.

Mike, ever the gentleman, took Micky out on dates. 

“There’s a double feature at the drive in tonight,” Mike had told him, while changing out of his uniform after work. He slipped on a button down shirt as he said, “It’s one’a those cheesy sci-fi flicks, and I know you like that sorta thing … so I was wonderin’ if you wanted to go?”

Micky set down the book he had been reading. “Is that even a question? Of course I would, man.”

So, they took Mike’s car to the drive in and parked near the back where it was darkest, and the movie was just the right amount of corny that it  _ would  _ have interested Micky, had he not had other things on his mind. The second Micky checked out the windows to see if anyone could look in and see them (they couldn’t), he had leaned across to Mike, taken his face in both hands and kissed him deeply. It had all the same gut-twisting appeal of making out in drive ins with girls when he was in high-school, all the adrenaline-fuelled fun of being young and sneaking around and being out past curfew - even though neither of them had had to worry about curfews for a long time.

Mike was certainly enjoying the distraction from the (admittedly) shitty movie playing. After the initial fear of being seen, he leant into Micky’s kiss, nibbling on Micky’s bottom lip to make him laugh and slipping in his tongue. 

Micky had both arms resting over Mike’s shoulders, though it wasn’t long that he was pulling them away to playfully bat Mike’s wrist. “Are you tryin’ to cop a feel?” Micky accused, smirking at him as they parted. 

“Guilty as charged,” Mike smiled sheepishly, crooked teeth showing.

“ _ Michael! _ ” Micky gasped, slapping him on the chest. “I’m not that kind of girl!” But he quickly dropped the scandalised act and leaned back into Mike. “You can do that later, but at  _ least  _ buy me a soda first.”

“Are you still joking around or is this how you tell me you’re thirsty?” Mike asked. 

“Thirsty,” Micky answered, then pulled away to open the car door. “C’mon, we can get popcorn too.”

They stood in line together at the concession stand, wishing they could hold hands like every other pair that had come to watch the movie together. Micky felt a little over-exposed in the light from the stand, and from the eyes of everyone around him. Nobody seemed to be looking at him, and still, Micky found that lately he felt more nervous in crowds than he ever had before the river. It wasn’t because of Mike, or from fearing that somebody would know about them (though he certainly had his small fears about that that he pushed away and ignored). It was because, even after all this time, he worried that someone would recognise him from a newspaper article about a missing person, or from rumours spread, or, god forbid, someone he had once known had somehow ended up in the same place he had.

His fear only increased when he scanned the movie-goers and met a pair of eyes that were fixed on him. Micky almost jumped when he noticed them.

“Mike,” Micky hissed, tugging his sleeve. “Mike, there’s a guy staring at me.”

Mike looked over his shoulder, trying to look casual and unsuspicious as he did so. But when he saw the man that was staring at them, he didn’t bother with the act and instead, bafflingly, smiled and waved. “That’s just Mark, I see him around at gigs and stuff,” he whispered to Micky.

Mark waved back, and approached them. Micky’s anxieties were quelled somewhat by the explanation, but still, he had a sense of unease that he couldn’t shake.

Mark stood beside Mike and slapped him on the back with a wide grin. “Mike! I was tryin’ to figure out if it was really you,” he chuckled good-naturedly. His eyes turned to Micky once again.

“Hey, Mark,” Mike greeted with a polite grin. “This is Micky.”

“Nice to meet ya, Micky,” Mark said, and held a hand out that Micky shook. “I haven’t seen you around before, are ya new to town?”

“He’s a pal from outta town. He’s just moved here, so he’s stayin’ with me ‘till he finds a place of his own” Mike lied, and Micky was glad for it. It would have been awkward to explain the truth - that Micky had rocked up one morning in his river. Still, Mark was looking at him as if he was a puzzle he was trying to solve.

Then he looked to the line in front of them, and saw that Micky and Mike were almost up next. “Well, I should leave you to it,” he said, in that same overly polite and enthusiastic tone he had kept up throughout the conversation. “Nice to see you, Mike.”

“Nice to see you, too,” Mike smiled.

“See ya,” Micky waved.

Micky was almost relieved when they turned their backs on Mark to order their food. He felt even better the closer they got to the car, as he sipped at his soda and Mike offered him some of his popcorn. They spent the rest of the night not paying attention to the movie and crawled into bed together the moment they got home.

Now that winter was well and truly gone, Micky had started working in the garden more. He had planted herbs in the planters by the windows, and all sorts of flowers around the porch. He was trying to get a vegetable garden going, though he had only successfully grown a single pumpkin. But he figured it would take a little time to get everything going. He had thought about growing fruit trees but he wasn’t sure if that was biting off more than he could chew. He would have to bounce the idea off of Mike.

It was a Saturday afternoon, and Micky and Mike had just gotten back from buying seeds for the garden. Mike was sitting on the steps of the porch, fiddling with his green wool hat in his hands as Micky chatted to him while he worked. It was that afternoon, out in the backyard, Mike wondering if he should make lemonade for the two of them, that they heard a knock on the front door. 

Micky went to take off his gloves and stand, when Mike held up a hand to stop him. “No, I’ll get it.”

Micky shrugged and went back to work, whistling as he did so. He was starting to think that Mike had been at the door a while, and was wondering if it was Davy and Peter coming to visit, when Mike reappeared on the porch with a dazed and surprised looking expression. Micky frowned and took off his gloves.

“Um … Your, uh …” Mike stammered, facing Micky, but looking more past him than at him. “You-you’re gonna wanna come inside.”

Micky didn’t know what to expect from Mike acting so strangely. As he came into the living room, his eyes had to adjust from being out in the sun for so long. He could hardly see, let alone process who was standing in his living room.

“ _ Micky? _ ” A woman’s voice gasped, in something of a sob. She enveloped him into a tight hug that squeezed at his ribs. “It’s really you!”

Micky felt like he had been stabbed in the gut. His chest felt tight and panicky. “Mom?” He looked up and saw his dad beside Mike, clutching his handkerchief. “Dad?” Micky’s mom let him go and he pulled his dad in to hug him. “I-I can’t believe you’re really here!”

Micky’s mom wiped at her eyes and sniffed. “Somebody made a report, saying they had seen somebody who looked like you, told the police you were staying here. Once the local police in town had been told, they notified us,” Micky’s mom explained. Micky looked to Mike, who looked confused. “But w-we didn’t have much hope. We’ve had so many dead ends already.”

“It’s been  _ months _ , Micky,” his dad said, and Micky winced. “All search parties could find was your shoe and your wallet in the river … We thought you’d drowned.”

“I’ve been alright … Mike took me in and helped me out,” Micky said, as if it would be any consolation to them to know that their son had been okay for months and hadn’t even given them a phone call.

“We were so worried … We were starting to lose hope of ever finding you, especially after finding your things in the river, we thought … Nancy was the last person to see you and she said you were in bad shape … we th-thought for sure you’d … Why didn’t you come home?” Micky’s mother asked, desperation and an unfathomable sadness in her voice and in the furrow of her brow. She clung to his dad’s arm.

“I …” Micky started, not knowing where to begin. This was one question he had been trying to avoid every day that he stayed with Mike. He felt very small, like the weight of his guilt was crushing him, pulling him down into the ground. “I was sick for a while …” It wasn’t a complete lie, but it wasn’t the complete truth, either. He hadn’t been sick for very long at all, but he didn’t know how else to make it easier for his parents. “And … I thought … I thought you’d be mad. I thought you’d hate me for it.”

“Oh, Micky,” his mom sighed sadly, pulling him into another hug, cradling the back of his head in her hand. “We couldn’t hate you. We just wanted you safe at home.”

“I’m sorry, mom,” Micky said, his voice cracking, and despite himself, he started crying too. He felt his dad’s hand on his shoulder. He felt like a monster for everything that he’d done, letting it go on for so long. It had never felt so real until then; he had somehow convinced himself that everybody would be able to go on just fine without him. “It was stupid. I was stupid.”

His parents stayed the rest of the afternoon. Mike made tea for the four of them, not speaking much aside from polite niceties when his parents acknowledged him and thanked him for looking after their son. Micky explained everything - how he had jumped into the river, washed up in Mike’s backyard, how Mike had looked after him and pretty much saved his life. He was vague in the details - he didn’t think it would be comforting for his parents to hear all the reasons he had wanted to kill himself, even if a great deal of it had been because he was impulsive and drunk. And there was the whole issue regarding Dean that he most definitely could not tell his parents under any circumstances.

They hadn’t left until it was dinnertime. They were staying in a motel in town, and Micky almost breathed a long sigh of relief when they mentioned it. He didn’t want his parents to expect to be able to stay at Mike’s house and find out that the cottage only had one bed.  _ That  _ would produce a question that he would rather run away from again instead of answering.

His parents wanted him to come home with them the next day. They seemed heartbroken when he had said that he needed to think it over, but he had smoothed it over by saying he needed to pack up the things he had and get things sorted.

Once they left, he sat on the couch with his head in his hands.

Mike sat beside him, and took hold of his wrists, gently pulling Micky’s hands away from his face until he could hold them in his own. Micky looked at Mike with watery eyes. “You can leave if you want. I won’t hold it against you, you don’t gotta stay for my sake.”

Micky sighed heavily. “But I don’t  _ want  _ to leave you. Is that selfish of me?”

“If it makes you selfish, then I’m selfish too,” Mike said with a sad smile. His voice wavered and threatened to cry when he said, “Because I don’t want you to go, either.”

“I can’t just do that to my family after everything.” Micky looked down at his hands, still held by Mike’s. “But I don’t wanna go back and pretend like nothing happened. I like it here. I like who I am here.”

Mike cradled one side of Micky’s face in his hand. “I can’t tell you what to do, Mick. I can’t decide for you what’s right.”

“I’ve got no choice but to go back,” Micky said softly. Mike nodded sadly. He had always known it would come to this, eventually. “Mike … It’s just … Nancy … I don’t know if she’ll wanna see me … I don’t know if she’ll want me back, or if she’ll just assume we’re still together or …”

Mike let out a barking laughter, so uncharacteristic for the conversation they were having. “You can’t seriously think I’m gonna be jealous of  _ Nancy _ ? I’d have more to worry about you leaving me for Dean than for her.”

Micky smiled despite himself. He said nothing.

“Baby, I don’t even know if you’re gonna be gone for a few days or for forever,” he chuckled, smiling even though he still sounded like he was holding back tears. “I’m more worried about that than I ever will be about Nancy.”

Micky looked away and squeezed Mike’s hand. Then he blurted, “Come with me. We can bring your car, an-and you can stay with my parents for a few days and we can figure out what to do.”

“Are you sure?” Mike asked. “I don’t want you just bringin’ me along because you feel sorry for leavin’ me here, especially if I’m intruding on you and your family.”

Micky pinched his arm. “You’re such an idiot, sometimes ... I want you to come with me because I don’t wanna  _ do _ it without you. And you basically saved my life, so my parents are practically indebted to you.”

“You’re sure?” Mike asked again.

“Man, if you keep askin’ me that I’m gonna change my mind,'' Micky teased, and kissed him deeply. “I’m always sure.” And though it was only early, Micky yawned and stretched and said, “C’mon, I’m beat. Let’s go to bed.”

Mike wasn’t feeling as tired, but he followed Micky into the bedroom anyway and stayed awake, holding Micky close to his chest as the boy slept in his arms. He worried about a lot of things - having to take time off work, getting Davy and Peter to look after Fish while they were gone, what their future would look like and if Micky would still want to be with him once he had been back home and realised what he had been missing. But eventually the thoughts fell away and he drifted off into sleep, listening to Micky’s breathing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay this note is really gonna ruin the immersion after the sad chapter ending but the mike tryin to cop a feel stuff was only in there bc i thought it was fucking hilarious and i dont know why. anyway thank you and goodnight.


End file.
